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Counterfeit drugs have typically been thought to emanate from among a number of developing countries, including China and India, whose abundance of unregulated manufacturers are blamed for the subversive infiltration of established supply chains.
In recent years, however, some very well regulated industries have been implicated in counterfeit drug seizures in Europe. Many were shocked when, in 2007, Switzerland was found to account for 40% of all counterfeits halted by European customs authorities. The Swiss – who boast two of the top ten pharmaceutical companies in the world – had apparently made five shipments of morphine-based painkillers (totaling 1.6 million pills), which were seized and identified as counterfeits by German customs between March and May 2007. While it was not clear that the pills were manufactured in Switzerland, that they were shipped from the country was cause for alarm.
EU Customs and Taxation Commissioner Lászlo Kovács said he was “shocked” by the Swiss case, adding, "The Swiss name carries a certain guarantee for consumers. It is therefore even more dangerous for the counterfeit products to come from Switzerland than from China."
It’s true, and makes finger-pointing at the usual suspects a little more difficult.
Even if the Swiss case was anomalous in 2007, the very next year 34 million tablets were seized, constituting the largest bust of illegal medicines ever recorded in Europe. MEDI-FAKE, a coordinative effort made by customs controls throughout the EU, accounted for customs at the Brussels, Belgium airport seizing 1,600,000 painkillers and 600,000 anti-malaria pills, and officers at Le Havre, France catching 400,000 counterfeit medicine pills and 11 million pseudoephedrine pills.
“Co-operation between customs and legitimate business proved vital,” said Kovács, in his statement of praise for the effectiveness of MEDI-FAKE.
Well what does that mean, exactly, and how much cooperation goes on between US industries and our customs agents?
This diagram, taken from a report prepared for The American Council on Science and Health called “Counterfeit Drugs: Coming to a Pharmacy Near You”, is ostensibly crafted to show how counterfeits steal their way into the American consumer market. (You can watch a brief YouTube video update in which two doctors with the ACSH do their best to further propagate the ‘caveat emptor’ message attached to online purchasing as well as deplore the chronic unpreparedness of the FDA to protect consumers from fraudulent medicines).
A whole lot of pointing, yes, but very little direction.
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