December 9, 2024: Lawsuit against Snap to proceed
Major Stories
Lawsuit progresses and statement by the American Diabetes Association
Family advocate Amy Neville lost her son Alex in 2020 to a fake pill from a Snapchat drug dealer.
Families who filed a lawsuit alleging that Snap, was responsible for deaths of their loved ones who died after ingesting counterfeit pills containing fentanyl sold by drug dealers advertising on Snapchat, are one step closer to their day in court after California’s Second District Court of Appeals declined to review the case.
While acknowledging the important role that compounded medication plays in the U.S. drug supply, the American Diabetes Association issued a statement urging patients to avoid using non-FDA-approved compounded incretin products due to concerns about “safety, quality, and effectiveness.”
PSM submitted request for a correction to JAMA
PSM Executive Director Shabbir Imber Safdar requested that the Journal of the American Medical Association correct an October 21, 2024 Special Communication, “Strategies to Help Patients Navigate High Prescription Drug Costs,” which misrepresented the FDA's stated position on the legality of personal drug importation.
Domestic News
Pill presses in the news in Michigan, Texas and Massachusetts.
Police in Detroit arrested multiple individuals and seized a pill press while executing a search warrant.
A federal judge sentenced Marco Juarez of Houston, TX to 120 months for his role in a counterfeit pill manufacturing ring that used the dark web to sell fake pills containing methamphetamine and etizolam to its customers.
In its continuing coverage of Massachusetts’s counterfeit pills problem, MassLive looked into how difficult it is to purchase a pill press.
Police officers seized kilogram quantities of illicit drugs and a pill press from a home in Detroit, Michigan.
International News
Counterfeit medicine news from six countries.
Health Canada seized hundreds of products in multiple provinces that contained undeclared pharmaceutical ingredients, including dehydroepiandrosterone, levodopa (aka L-dopa), prasterone, sildenafil, and tadalafil.
An operation in Sinaloa, Mexico led by the country’s Secretariat of the Navy led to the seizure of over 1,500 kilograms (3,300 pounds) of fentanyl pills.
Kenya’s Pharmacy and Poisons Board issued the immediate quarantine of a popular cancer drug - Flurasted 500 - over concerns that it may be counterfeit.
Authorities in Pakistan busted a counterfeit drug trafficking network that used WhatsApp to sell fake anesthesia injections, cough syrup and skin creams.
Since December 2023, a sprawling counterfeit drug network in Telangana, India has been dismantled over the course of ten carefully planned raids by the state’s Drugs Control Administration.
PPB shared image of Flurasted 500.