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News -
The trade in counterfeits
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Written by Hilke Schellmann
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Saturday, 14 February 2009 00:07 |
"The report reveals 62% of medicines purchased online are fake or substandard, including drugs for heart disease, lung disease, mental health and neurological disorders."
It also said that fake drugs often have no active ingredients; or worse, they could contain potentially fatal ingredients. 62% is a shockingly high number. But is it for real?
The problem is that the Telegraph did not disclose who EAASM's financial backers are. I was curious to find out. It wasn't that difficult: The website of EAASM says pharmaceutical companies like Bayer, Pfizer and Lilly are funding the alliance.
Unsurprisingly, the report sparked controversy. In the industry newsletter Pharma Marketletter, a spokesperson for a parallel trade group – made up of firms who buy cheap drugs in one European country and then sell them to other countries where these drugs go for a higher price -- claimed that EAASM's report is a "sheer propaganda tool."
Another lobby group, the EAEPC (European Association of Euro-Pharmaceutical Companies,) accused the EAASM of targeting online pharmacies to convince governments to ban imports of cheaper drugs entirely. For sure, the drug companies who back EAASM would gain substantially from such a ban while the EAEPC would lose their business base.
But how pervasive are fake drugs? It's hard to tell, largely because of the clandestine nature of the trade. The most cited statistic is the estimate by the World Health Organization in 2006 that about 1% of drugs in developed countries are counterfeit. In developing countries, the number is estimated to be higher than 10%. The WHO doesn't say where the estimated 1% counterfeit drugs come from.
There is a wide gap between WHO and EAASM numbers. (The EAASM says that they came up with the number after buying two packets each of 18 medicines commonly purchased via the internet. They then had experts check the package and a laboratory check the ingredients of every drug. The WHO doesn't explain how it came up with the estimate.)
There's a lesson here: in the pharmaceutical industry, where there are many competing interests, it's hard to trust studies unless we know who's backing them.
In the world of counterfeit drugs, who can we really trust?
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Last Updated on Monday, 02 March 2009 16:42 |
