FEDERAL JUDGE REFUSES TO REINSTATE LICENSE OF DAVIE-BASED INTERNET PHARMACY

MIAMI -- A judge is refusing to reinstate a license yanked by the Drug
Enforcement Administration from a pharmacy that filled online orders for
prescription diet pills without a doctor's visit.

Rx Network had successfully fought state intervention on the same issue.
But a different judge sided with the DEA two weeks ago in a license dispute
with a second pharmacy operating from the same suburban Davie office complex.

"When a district court judge rules in your favor, it's a stamp of
approval," DEA spokesman Joe Kilmer said Monday. "(RX Network) chose to
ignore us, and finally the system is working the way it's supposed to."

Pharmacy manager Mary Pu, who testified for Rx Network at a hearing on its
injunction request last week, had no comment Monday. The company's attorney
was out of the office and not immediately available for comment.

The civil actions taken against Rx Network and Lifeline Pharmacy are part
of a DEA crackdown in an area of the law that the pharmacies claim is
legally fuzzy.

Both were warned they were violating the law but insisted the DEA was
overstepping its authority because many states do not require face-to- face
doctor visits for prescriptions.

Both pharmacies filled prescriptions relayed by Web sites and approved by a
short list of doctors based on Internet questionnaires.

The online forms "had no ability to detect fraud and in fact helped
consumers commit fraud by notifying the consumer that the height and weight
information entered was insufficient to warrant diet drugs" and allowing
changes, U.S. District Judge William Zloch said in an order obtained Monday.

He noted that the only thing needed to order the stimulant Bondril was a
credit card and a mailing address. An agent testified at the hearing last
week that a Mailboxes Etc box was sufficient on one undercover purchase.

Rx Network's argument that consumers were suffering from the pharmacy's
shutdown "is unconvincing" because anyone with a legitimate medical need
could get the drugs through "innumerable physicians and pharmacies," the
judge wrote.

The investigation began in March 2002 after a diet drug maker told the DEA
in Washington that it saw a national magazine ad by a Web site offering its
product without a doctor's visit.

Pu estimated in court that the company filled about 500 online orders a
day. The DEA said the pharmacy dispensed more than 19 million doses of
drugs since it received its license in February 2001.