Mexican Senate Increases Penalties for Medicine Counterfeiters
The Mexican Senate voted on March 12 to increase penalties to counterfeit drug sellers to nine years in prison and fines of up to 3 million pesos.
The Senate approved an amendment to article 464 of The General Health Law to increase penalties with 90 votes in favor. Senate Health Committee President Maki Esther Ortiz Dominguez said, “Anyone who sells or offers for sale, trades, distributes or transports medicine, drugs, raw materials that are falsified, altered, contaminated or adulterated, either in stores or in any other place….will be subject to the same penalty,” reported The News.
U.S. Ambassador Anthony Wayne has urged Mexico to stop the sale and consumption of illegal medicines. On March 6, Ambassador Wayne joined the Mexican Association of Pharmaceutical Research Industries (AMIIF) at the Third International Forum on Combating Illegal Market Health Products. reported the US Embassy in Mexico.
Said Ambassador Wayne, “Studies estimate that illegal market health products are responsible for over 700,000 deaths each year. Conferences like this, which take a collaborative approach to addressing the problem, are essential to protect the health and safety of our citizens, to protect the reputation and economic viability of innovative pharmaceutical companies in both our countries, and to protect those that seek to provide safe and affordable medicines to the public.”