Author: Alejandro Jadad
Position: Professor, Chief Innovator and Founder
Institution: Centre for Global eHealth Innovation
E-mail: ajadad@ehealthinnovation.org
Additional Authors: Peter Gernburd
Submitted Date: October 11, 2007
Published Date: October 12, 2007
This comment was originally posted as a “Reader Response” on the publication date indicated above. All Reader Responses are now available as comments.

Dr. Eysenbach’s 1999 article focused on how pharmacies with stable online links respond to patients with prescriptions. Our study, which we still believe is unique, was designed to understand the nature and behavior of spammers, those elusive people who send massive numbers of unsolicited offers of health-related products to the general public, and who are prepared to deliver them without prescriptions, outside the context of a patient-health professional relationship and with no accountability for their actions.