Interchange 2011 Wrap Up
From the Maryland Attorney General, to the International Association of Patient Organizations, the second annual Partnership for Safe Medicines Interchange 2011 provided local and international perspectives on the issues involving counterfeit medicine.
The Partnership for Safe Medicines 2011 Interchange on October 27, began with dynamic remarks from Colorado Senator Michael Bennet and Congressman Jim Matheson of Utah highlighting the risks of counterfeits to patient safety. The first panel, "Protecting Our Medicines" was a lively discussion between the CDER office of the FDA represented by Michael Levy and policy makers Travis Johnson, of the International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition, and Alex Dahl, of the Coalition for Patient Safety and Medicine Integrity, concerned with lenient penalites for drug cargo thieves and the online counterfeit medicine sellers.
The second panel, ""Combating Drug Counterfeiting & Sales," featured Maryland Attorney General, Douglas F. Gansler, who spoke on the states' abilities to prosecute online counterfeit drug sellers, Libby Baney, from the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies who started with a moving tale of her own sister hospitalized after purchasing a counterfeit medicine over the internet, and Alex Bamiagis, of IPEC, who discussed the high level strategies that law makers are instituting to fight illegal fake pharmaceuticals.
Under Secretary of State for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs Robert Hormats spoke with great energy about the U.S.'s international policy to fight counterfeiting here and abroad because in a global economy, Americans are impacted by counterfeiting that occurs overseas as well.
Panel 3, moderated by Bejon Misra, Found of the Partnership for Safe Medicines India, brought to light the international perspective on counterfeit medication risks with Jeremiah Mwangi of the International Alliance of Patients' Organizations, Connie Jung from the Office of Drug Security, Integrity and Recalls at the FDa, and Xuanhao Chaing of the International Pharmaceutical Federation. Misra discussed the great progress that India has made in identifying medicine counterfeiters and raising public awareness of the dangers. Mwangi discussed the blind spot that patients have believing that internet purchases are always safe, while in reality medications purchased on the internet are most likely to be counterfeit. Connie Jung discussed the FDA's efforts to raise awareness among patients to the risks of counterfeit medication, and where they can purchase medication safely. Chan discussed the areas of improvement in public awareness of counterfeits, particularly where consumers are uninformed about them worldwide, and where doctors, nurses and pharmacists are unaware that they too can help in fighting counterfeiting.
Finally, the keynote address by Deputy Director Kumar Kibble of ICE was rousing call to arms for all of us to keep raising awareness of the risks of counterfeit drugs and to remind us that there is a long history in the United States of being the forerunner in medicine safety worldwide and that we must continue to lead the world in action.