The trade in counterfeits
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The trade in counterfeits
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Written by Olivia Andrzejczak
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Monday, 09 March 2009 00:00 |
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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.
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Last Updated on Friday, 20 March 2009 13:18 |
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Read more... [Faked in Switzerland]
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The trade in counterfeits
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Written by Andrew Schmid
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Sunday, 08 March 2009 15:36 |
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The BBC reported last week that an investigation into the UK-based Web site Pharma2u.com by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) resulted in an elderly couple being arrested and over $350,000 in counterfeit, unlicensed and withdrawn prescription drugs being seized.
The haul, MHRA Head of Operations Danny Lee-Frost told the BBC, was only the "tip of the iceberg" of an expected multi-million-pound illegal online pharmaceutical business.
"The dangers of purchasing medicines online are that you just don't know what you are taking," he said.
The Mirror.co.uk also reported that the series of pre-dawn raids netted "a 'significant haul' of illicit drugs, including bogus Viagra and Prozac."
Currently, the watchdog group LegitScript has more than 34,000 “rogue” pharmacies in its database. These are online pharmacies from all over the world that LegitScript does not consider to be legitimate.
According to its blog, LegitScript had designated Pharma2u.com as “as a rogue several months ago, based on that fact that it did not require a valid prescription, and offered to import prescription-only drugs into the United States in violation of federal law.”
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Last Updated on Friday, 20 March 2009 13:19 |
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The trade in counterfeits
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Written by Emily Witt
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Tuesday, 03 March 2009 00:00 |
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Last month, Jared Robert Wheat, an online pharma entrepreneur from Georgia, was sentenced to four years in jail for manufacturing counterfeit drugs such as Ambien, Xanax, Zoloft and Viagra in Belize and selling them over the Internet.
He also had to forfeit $3 million. Yet, Wheat's Web site, Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals, is still selling herbal supplements for “fat loss,” “sexual performance” and “muscle and strength” with a banner proclaiming the company’s tenth anniversary. One of Wheat’s most popular products, a “revolutionary sexual supplement” called Stamina-RX, is even available on Amazon and GNC, despite an FDA warning that the drug poses “possible health risks.”
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Last Updated on Wednesday, 04 March 2009 08:17 |
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Read more... [Despite sentencing, Web salesman still peddling "sexual supplements]
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