The Year in Review – Part 2 – Diversion, Black Market and Internet
Part 2 of The Year in Review
Fake medications have infiltrated the legitimate supply
chain in the United States in 2012 through doctor’s offices, bricks and mortar
pharmacies and through direct-to-consumer purchasing on the internet.
Fake drugs containing dangerous ingredients
have been found for purchasing from unlicensed internet pharmacies, and drug
diverters have infiltrated brick and mortar pharmacies with black market medications.
Part 2 of The Year in Review
Fake medications have infiltrated the legitimate supply
chain in the United States in 2012 through doctor’s offices, bricks and mortar
pharmacies and through direct-to-consumer purchasing on the internet.
The Food and Drug Administration has warned
over 168 doctors in 33 states that they “purchased medications from foreign or
unlicensed supplies that sold illegal prescription medications,” and three doctors
have pleaded guilty in cases of distributing misbranded cancer drugs to their
patients. But that’s not the only path dangerous
counterfeit medications take to get to American patients. Fake drugs containing dangerous ingredients
have been found for purchasing from unlicensed internet pharmacies, and drug
diverters have infiltrated brick and mortar pharmacies with black market medications.
Drug Diversion and the Black Market
In 2012 black marketers sold expired, mishandled and stolen medication back
into corrupt pharmacies. In April, four people were arrested for buying
black market AIDS drugs to sell through the MOMs pharmacy chain which specializes in HIV and AIDS care in New
York, making millions. Stated the US
Attorney General’s Office, the “scheme endangered patients by exposing them to
drugs of unknown origin and potency, and in some cases, drugs that were
mislabeled or potentially expired.”
In September in Florida, William Rodriguez was sentenced to
10 years for a massive black market medicine redistribution scheme. He bought medication from cargo hijackers,
black market dealers and directly from patients to resell back into the secure
supply chain at a profit to Altec Medical.
Altec paid Rodriguez $55 million for prescription drugs diverted from lawful channels and given fake pedigrees. Altec resold the mishandled medications to
drug distributors with valid drug distribution licenses. Eventually the dangerous meds were bought by
retail pharmacies, and on to unsuspecting patients.
Medication is often fragile, and stolen medication held in
poor conditions and after expiration is not effective or safe for patients. Said
Stuart F. Delery, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice
Department’s Civil Division, “Drugs diverted from the lawful channels of
distribution may not have been properly handled and stored, which means they
could have been contaminated, had their mechanisms of action altered, or they
could be expired.”
Deadly Fake Medicines On the Internet Make Criminals Rich
In 2012, patients had to avoid not only dishonest
doctors, quacks and black marketeters.
Patients also risked medications
from fake online pharmacies that offered too good to be true prices and “no
prescription necessary.” This year, the FDA identified counterfeit Adderall, which contained
the pain medications Tramadol and acetominophen, instead of the actual ingredients, and counterfeit Vicodin,
which contained an NSAID instead of the active ingredient, for sale in the US online. In
both cases, patients would have ingested other drugs than those purported with potentially dangerous side effects.
Additionally, several manufacturers of so-called “natural herbal”
treatments for sale on the Internet such as weight loss drugs, pain-killers,
stomach bug treatments, herbal sexual aids, and STD medications have been cited
by the FDA for offering misbranded drugs.
In many cases they were not herbal in nature but instead contained drugs
banned by the FDA. One herbal remedy,
Remoufan Plus, touted as a natural treatment for joint pain, prompted the FDA to
issue three warnings, including reporting cases of “fatalities, stroke and severe
bleeding ” and other serious symptoms amongst those who had taken the
drug.
From 2012 criminal cases alone, the US Justice Department and the FDA have claimed
that fake internet pharmacies have cost Americans over a $100 million in fraud.
In
April, two Israeli citizens were convicted of selling counterfeit medications
to Americans from websites. Testing
proved the medications were counterfeits and “sub-potent.” In June, a Puerto Rico resident was
convicted of using the internet to obtain and distribute counterfeit drugs exported from China and shipped to Houston, TX. In July, captured fugitive Robin Han pleaded
guilty to importation of counterfeit drugs into the US via fake online pharmacies, after originally
being indicted in 2007. In September, more than 100 countries participated in Operation
Pangea V, a global sting operation coordinated by Interpol, targeted
counterfeit drug websites and shut down 18,000 sites selling counterfeit medication worldwide, seizing 3.75 million counterfeit medicines worth over $10 million. And in October, the founder of a fake internet pharmacy,
Andrew Strempler, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit $95 million worth of mail
fraud by selling unapproved medication to Americans, reported the Canadian Broacasting Corporation.
These convictions, and the 18,000 closed websites, are symptomatic of the larger risk of using fake online pharmacies. The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy
(NABP) states in “Internet Drug Outlet Identification Program Progress Report for
State and Federal Regulators: January 2012” that 96% of online
pharmacies are out of compliance with US laws. Researchers have found that 30 unique fake
pharmacy organizations control over 347 million unique web addresses for fake
online pharmacies.
These research results were supported by new research presented at the The Partnership for Safe Medicine’s 2012 Interchange. Damon McCoy discussed “PharmaLeaks: understanding the business of online
pharmaceutical affiliate programs,” a demonstration of the vulnerability fake
online drug sellers have to payment processors.
Tim Mackey, MAS, 2011-2012 PSM Carl L. Alsberg, MD, Fellow for Safe
Medicines, also presented original research, “A Day in the Life of Illegal
Online Drug Sellers Using Social Media.”
Mackey’s research explained how easy it is to set up a fake online
pharmacy website advertised using social media, as a warning to consumers that
only a VIPPS pharmacy is a legitimate and safe source of medicine online.
Consumers can purchase medication safely online and even
shop for savings, but only from VIPPS certified pharmacies. Patients should be wary of online pharmacies
that claim to be from Canada. Websites
that claim to be Canadian could be anywhere in the world, and even legitimate
Canadian pharmacies are not subject to the FDA’s jurisidiction, which means
American customers aren’t protected by the FDA’s safety regulations.
Read Part 1 of the Year In Review.
By S. Imber