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# FDA Acts Against 4k Websites for Unapproved Drugs
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/fda-acts-against-4k-websites-for-unapproved-drugs/
- Published: 2016-06-09T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T21:08:45.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: Drugs, #legacy-id-D5135891

As part of its involvement in Interpol’s 5/31-6/7 Ninth Annual Internet Week of Action (Operation Pangea IX), FDA took action against 4,402 Web sites, asking their domain registrars to suspend them for illegally selling potentially dangerous unapproved prescription drugs to U.S. consumers. The agency also issued Warning Letters to operators of 53 Web sites illegally offering unapproved and misbranded prescription drug products for sale to U.S. consumers.

An agency [news release](http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm505921.htm?ref=fdaweb.com) says that Operation Pangea IX’s goal was to identify the makers and distributors of illegal prescription drug products and remove the products from the supply chain. As part of the operation, FDA says it conducted extensive inspections at international mail facilities in coordination with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Working with other federal agencies, FDA inspectors screened and seized illegal drug products received through mail facilities in San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. They detained 797 parcels which, if found to violate the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, will be refused entry into the country and destroyed. The agency says that preliminary findings from products screened at the mail facilities show that U.S. consumers had purchased certain unapproved drug products from abroad to treat depression, narcolepsy, high cholesterol, glaucoma, and asthma, among other diseases.

Among the 4,402 Web sites targeted were 110 that sold the chemical 2,4-dinitrophenol (DNP) as a weight loss product. FDA says that DNP is most often used as a dye, wood preserver, and herbicide, and has never been approved by the agency for use as a drug.