FDA takes aim at online opioid sellers with new pilot
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) will partner with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in a pilot aimed at reducing the online sale of illicit opioids.During the 120-day pilot, FDA will notify participating internet registries when a website operator does not respond adequately, or within the required time frame, to a warning letter. An agency of the US Department of Commerce in the Executive Branch, NTIA oversees telecommunications and information policy issues.
“Cooperation between the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Commerce, with the addition of the pilot program, will help stop the online sale of illicit opioids and combat our country’s deadly addiction crisis,” said HHS Secretary Alex Azar in a press release announcing the pilot program.
Neustar is the registry for .us domain names; Verisign issues .com and .net domain names, while Public Interest Registry issues .org domain names. These three participating registries will review the FDA notifications and decide whether to take action.
Any action taken by the registries would be voluntary; potential actions include locking or deleting the warned operator’s domain or placing it on hold. The FDA’s designation as an official “trusted notifier” during the pilot, said the Commerce Department in its announcement of the pilot, “expedites the process for suspending domain name registrations.”
“The Commerce Department is eager to work with our partners at HHS, FDA, and the domain name registries to remove a major channel for the sale of illicit opioids, which will help save many American lives,” said Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross.