The possible breach of a state electronic prescription drug database could have an ironic effect: promotion of prescription drug fraud and abuse, the very thing the system was set up to deter.
That suggestion came from outside experts Thursday as the FBI and State Police continued investigating last week’s unauthorized intrusion on the Web site of the Virginia Prescription Monitoring Program.
According to WikiLeaks, an open-government Web site, the intruder was a hacker claiming to have gained access to more than 35 million prescription records and demanding a $10 million ransom.
The statewide database was established in 2006 to combat prescription drug abuse, which is increasingly recognized as a national public health issue. Overdose deaths from prescription drugs now exceed those from illegal drugs.
The database contains records of every prescription dispensed by Virginia pharmacies of certain drugs with a high potential for abuse, such as OxyContin, Vicodin and Ambien. Until it was shut down in the wake of the hacker attack, the system allowed doctors and pharmacists to track those prescriptions and watch for patterns of abuse.
If the database is now in the hands of a hacker, Virginians whose prescription records were stolen are “at risk of medical identity theft,” said Rob Douglas, editor of the Web site www.IdentityTheft.info.
The records include the patient’s name, address and date of birth, the name and quantity of the drug prescribed, and identifying numbers for the prescriber and dispenser.
“With that information, it is plausible that a medical identity thief could contact the pharmacist and initiate a refill of that medication,” Douglas said. “These are highly sought-after drugs, easily converted to cash on the street in sales to addicts.
“If I were the state, I would be very concerned that their system has now been compromised.”
In addition, he said, individual Virginians have reason for concern. If their records are…