Where there is real money to be made regardless of the legalities, organized crime is always there in advance, having sniffed the stench of dirty money and taken early advantage of the opportunity. Now you may think that the explosion of medication vendors on the internet is a boon for organized crime, but you would only be half right. Counterfeit medications have long been a source of illegal income and the import of pharmaceuticals from overseas has made it even easier for criminals to make and sell the fakes.
According to the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, it is expected that sales of counterfeit drugs will have reached $75 billion US by 2010. While this is small in comparison to the estimated $320 billion US in worldwide illegal drug sales as of 2003, it is still a considerable amount of money. As well, unlike the illegal drug trade in which "quality" of product is important for retaining customers, in the counterfeit drug trade, the effectiveness of the drug is hardly important at all.
With no requirements on quality or on safety, any drugs that are popular with good prices and sales will be counterfeited. This means that the
little blue pill, Viagra, is a popular counterfeit target as are its competitors Levitra and Cialis. In fact, as of 2007, fake Viagra was responsible for a 24% increase in the number of counterfeit drug seizures. Seizures of Viagra counterfeits occur regularly with 9,000 pills seized in Sweden, 21,600 pills seized in Miami, 160,000 pills seized in Spain, and some portion of 15,000 pills seized in Montreal all within 2009.
These are by no means the only popular medications to be counterfeited or sold illegally, either. Tamiflu and Relenza, antiviral drugs used in infections such as those occurring with the current H1N1 outbreak, are produced and sold illegally. As well, medications for treating malaria, HIV and
tuberculosis have all been counterfeited.
In November of last year, Interpol confiscated $6.65 million worth of these drugs over the course of 200 raids in Southeast Asia. Not only can these drugs be ineffective or dangerous outright, but also those with incorrect doses of real medications can lead to drug resistance, especially in the case of malaria or TB.
In addition, the problem seems to be getting much worse. It is estimated that the sale of counterfeit drugs has increased by 90% since 2005. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) estimates, nearly 15% of the pharmaceuticals entering the country are counterfeit. Similarly, investigators from the security company Kroll suggest that in the $15.5 billion Mexican pharmaceutical market, some 10% or $1.5 billion in sales are of counterfeit drugs. In developing countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates as much as 30% of drugs are counterfeit.
This means that a great number of people are getting drugs that haven't been tested, may not work and could be dangerous to their health.
Not surprisingly at all, 6% of fake medications are "Made in China", a country very well known for piracy of all types of products. However,
India, a major producer of legitimate drugs for the west has by far the most serious issue with counterfeit drug production, being responsible for 75% of the world's counterfeit drugs. This is despite the Indian cabinet having made the production and sale of counterfeit drugs a crime punishable by death. As well, Egypt and Russia have also been implicated as a source for the illegal drugs.
As far as the Internet sale of counterfeit drugs is concerned, the problem is so serious that Interpol and the WHO have coordinated efforts with 24 countries and identified more than 750 websites that were selling counterfeit pills. The details of their operation were only released this week. However, this is just the tip of a very massive iceberg. According to experts at the Center for Pharmoeconomic Studies at The University of Texas at Austin, efforts by the FDA looking at Internet websites found 11,000 that claimed to be based in Canada, when analysis revealed only 214 were.
So the immediate question, that comes to mind is how to protect our own health in the midst of this worsening situation? The single simplest way is to get a prescription from your doctor and find a pharmacy that requires this prescription in order to provide the drugs. They should have a public mailing address and a phone number. This will cost more because being authentic, regulated and safe does cost money. As far as buying drugs from friendly guys hanging out on street corners, just don't. Keep in mind that you might get far more that you asked for.
By the way, if that's not enough incentive, terrorist organizations have also been associated with counterfeit drug sales...
Have you had problems with fake medication sales over the Internet or businesses trying to sell medications for a price that is too good to be true? Share your story in the
health forums.
Related Links:http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2005/06/30/un_report_puts_worlds_illicit_drug_trade_at_estimated_321b/
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/thailand/091020/fake-viagra-pharma-bangkok-patpong
http://www.livemint.com/2008/06/10231936/Fake-Viagra-leads-24-jump-in.html
http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_23683.shtml
http://www.miamiherald.com/1374/story/1297027.html
http://www.thelocal.se/20248/20090624/
http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/qc/nouv-news/com-rel/2009/08/090807-eng.htm
http://www.kroll.com/about/library/fraud/Oct2009/mexico_pharma.aspx
http://www.interpol.int/Public/ICPO/PressReleases/PR2008/PR200865.asp
http://www.acsh.org/docLib/20090202_counterfeitdrug09.pdf
http://www.lancet.com/journals/lancet/issue/vol371no9624/PIIS0140-6736(08)X6021-0
http://www.utexas.edu/features/2007/prescription/
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/327/7412/414-b
http://www.outsourcing-pharma.com/Contract-Manufacturing/New-counterfeit-report-highlights-worrying-trends
http://www.mhra.gov.uk/NewsCentre/Pressreleases/CON062909
http://www.newswiretoday.com/news/45597/
