Busting the illegal trade in bogus drugs
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently announced it was moving ahead with rules that will allow tracking of individual drugs from factory to pharmacy. That may surprise consumers who assumed such a system was already in place. A 1988 federal law required drug tracking, but the FDA didn't draft rules until 1999; then they were placed on hold. The delay was due, in part, to the lack of effective tracking technology. Meanwhile, the once-unheard-of crime of drug counterfeiting blossomed into a global industry that grossed an estimated $7.5 billion last year.
22 June 2006