Reporting and Data
O’Donnell J, Tanz LJ, Gladden RM, Davis NL, Bitting J. Trends in and Characteristics of Drug Overdose Deaths Involving Illicitly Manufactured Fentanyls — United States, 2019–2020. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. ePub: 14 December 2021.
Summary What is already known about this topic? Synthetic opioids, including illicitly manufactured fentanyls (IMFs), were involved in 64% of >100,000 estimated U.S. drug overdose deaths during May 2020–April 2021. What is added by this report? During 2019–2020, IMF-involved overdose deaths increased sharply in midwestern, southern, and western jurisdictions. During 2020, approximately 40% of IMF-involved…
[...]Nayyar GM., Breman JG, Et Al. Falsified and Substandard Drugs: Stopping the Pandemic AJTMhH 2019 Mar; 18-0981.
Abstract Falsified and substandard medicines are associated with tens of thousands of deaths, mainly in young children in poor countries. Poor-quality drugs exact an annual economic toll of up to US$200 billion and contribute to the increasing peril of antimicrobial resistance. The WHO has emerged recently as the global leader in the battle against poor-quality…
[...]Bastiaan J Venhuis, Angela E Oostlander, Domenico Di Giorgio, Ruth Mosimann, Ines du Plessis. Oncology Drugs In The Crosshairs Of Pharmaceutical Crime. The Lancet. 2013;19:e209-15.
Oncology drugs clearly have become a target for pharmaceutical crime. In 2016, falsified oncology drugs ranked fifth in the most commonly falsified drug category among the reports received by the Pharmaceutical Security Institute. Although the prevalence of illicit oncology drugs in the legal supply chains appears to be small, these drugs are difficult to detect,…
[...]CDC Paints a Grim Picture of the U.S. Fentanyl Crisis in Ohio
According to the CDC, “Approximately 90% of unintentional overdose deaths in 24 Ohio counties that occurred during January and February 2017 involved fentanyl, fentanyl analogs, or both.”
[...]da Justa Neves, Diana Brito, Ravane Gracy Ament Marcheti, and Eloisa Dutra Caldas. “Incidence of anabolic steroid counterfeiting in Brazil.” Forensic Science International 228, no. 1-3 (May 10, 2013): e81-e83.
AbstractThis retrospective study reports data obtained from the National Institute of Criminalistics of the Brazilian Federal Police Department (DPF) on 3676 anabolic products seized between 2006 and 2011. Anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS) were declared on the labels of 96.2% of the products. About one third of the products declared to be from Paraguay, and 14.3%…
[...]Nemlekar P, Shepherd M*, Lawson K, and Rush S. Web-Based Survey to Assess the Perceptions of Managed Care Organization Representatives on Use of Copay Subsidy Coupons for Prescription Drugs. J Manag Care Pharm. 2013;19(8):602-08.
ABSTRACT BACKGROUND: Promotion of prescription drug coupons and vouchers by pharmaceutical manufacturers has increased in recent years. These coupons and vouchers usually subsidize patients’ cost-sharing obligations. In other words, drug companies pay for a patient’s portion of the drug cost, and the remaining cost is paid by the patient and the patient’s health plan. This…
[...]Shepherd M*. Examination of Why Some Community Pharmacists Do Not Provide 72-Hour Emergency Prescription Drugs to Medicaid Patients When Prior Authorization Is Not Available. J Manag Care Pharm. 2013;19(7):523-33.
BACKGROUND: Existing federal law requires that a 72-hour emergency supply of a prescription drug be dispensed to Medicaid patients when prior authorization (PA) is not available and the medication is needed without delay. The pharmacist’s role is to contact prescribers and inform them that PA is needed. If the prescriber cannot be reached, the pharmacist can dispense a 72-hour emergency supply.
OBJECTIVES: To determine (a) the reasons why some community pharmacy owners/managers, staff pharmacists, and technicians are not compliant with the law; (b) how often the decision is made; and (c) estimate how often pharmacies do not dispense the 72-hour emergency supply when PA is not available.
[...]Liang BA*, Mackey TK, Lovett KM. Illegal “No Prescription” Internet Access to Narrow Therapeutic Index Drugs. Clin Ther. 2013 Apr 15; S0149-2918(13)00167-7.
Abstract BACKGROUND: Narrow therapeutic index (NTI) drugs, because of proximity of therapeutic amounts to toxic amounts, require close professional oversight, particularly when switching formulations. However, safe use may be compromised by unsupervised switching through access to online "no prescription" Web sites. OBJECTIVE: We assessed no prescription online availability of NTI drugs, using an academically published…
[...]Chambliss W. G, Carroll W. A, Kennedy D, Shepherd M*, et al. Role of the Pharmacist in Preventing Distribution of Counterfeit Medications. In: J Am Pharm Assoc. 2012;52(2):195-199.
Abstract Objective: To provide an overview of the counterfeit medication problem and recommendations of a joint American Pharmacists Association (APhA) Academy of Pharmaceutical Research and Science and APhA Academy of Pharmacy Practice and Management taskforce. Date sources: SciFinder and PubMed were searched from 1980 to March 2011 using the following keywords: counterfeit drug product, counterfeit…
[...]Csupor D, Boros K, Dankó B, Veres K, Szendrei K, Hohmann J. Rapid identification of sibutramine in dietary supplements using a stepwise approach. Pharmazie. 2013 Jan;68(1):15-8.
Abstract Adulteration of botanical food supplements with undeclared synthetic drugs is a common problem. One of the most affected product groups are the slimming agents. There are no analytical protocols for the detection of synthetic adulterants from these products. The present study aimed at the development of a multistep analytical method for the quick and…
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