Policy/Enforcement News
Flood of Counterfeit Drugs Confiscated by European Border Officials in 2011
A new report by the European Commission identified a 9-fold increase in counterfeit drug seizures in the EU since 2010.
In 2011, counterfeit drug enforcement in the European Union broke up counterfeit drug rings in Spain and the United Kingdom, identified fake HIV medication in the market and convicted fake asthma inhaler distributors in the UK. The new Report on EU Customs Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights: Results At the EU Border-2011, showed “a continuous upward trend” in counterfeit medication confiscations at the border since 2010.
[...]How Fake Drug Criminals Snare Consumers Online
How is technology advancing in counterfeit drug crime? Learn more at the 2012 Interchange where Timothy K. Mackey, MAS, the 2011-2012 Carl L. Alsberg, MD, Fellow for Safe Medicines will present his research, “A Day in the Life of Illegal Online Drug Sellers.”
Counterfeit drug sellers and fake online pharmacies use sophisticated web search redirection, IP-hijacking, and search result flooding to manipulate Internet users to purchase from their online counterfeit drug sites.
[...]Counterfeit Med Seller Convicted by Federal Jury – ICE Led Investigation
A federal jury convicted Luis Angel Garcia Torres, 41, of Puerto Rico on 12 counts related to trafficking in counterfeit medicine, announced U.S. Attorney Kenneth Magidson, on June 14, 2012.
Garcia Torres used the internet to purchase the medication, provided advice to the counterfeit manufacturers in China on avoiding detection by US law enforcement, and then sold the fake drugs to undercover Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Houston, TX.
[...]NABP Applies for New Top-Level Domain to Provide Secure Destination for Consumers
The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) has applied to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to own and operate the new .PHARMACY generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD). NABP has announced it has applied for the generic Too-Level Domain .PHARMACY as a "community-based application representing legitimate online pharmacies and prescription drug-related organizations worldwide…
[...]FDA Cites 2 Canadian Pharmacies for Offering Unapproved Drugs to Americans
On May 24, 2012, Thomas Christi, Acting Office Director for the FDA’s Office of Drug Security, Integrity and Recalls sent warning letters to Pharmawest Pharmacy and Best Price Rx, two Canadian pharmacies known by their websites www.bestpricerx.com and www.northwestpharmacy.com. The warning letters state that the FDA has determined that the companies’ websites “offer an unapproved…
[...]Medicine Theft Ring Arrested for $70 Million Warehouse Pilfering
Two Cuban brothers were indicted by federal authorities for the theft of more than $70 million in prescription drugs from an Eli Lilly & Co. warehouse the night of March 13, 2010. The Connecticut warehouse break-in required the criminals to slide through a whole cut in the warehouse roof, down a rope, in order to…
[...]HIV/AIDS Black Market Sells Fraudulent Drugs to Unwitting Victims
Pharmacists in Brooklyn and Suffolk County have been charged with allegedly re-selling HIV and AIDS medications to patients that had been illegally obtained on the black market. The medications were mislabelled and potentially mishandled and expired. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said, "The ringleaders of this complex scheme not only cheated the Medicaid program out of…
[...]USP Will Hold Workshop on Supply Chain Integrity May 22-23
The United States Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) is hosting a two day workshop on good distribution practices and supply chain integrity in Rockville, MD. The objectives of the workshop are To discuss the breadth of current issues, regulations and solutions. Obtain additional input for USP General Chapter <1083>. Identify opportunities for USP's role in supply chain…
[...]NABP Release Year End 2011 Data: Fake Pharmacies Proliferate, the Many Controlled by the Few
The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy has released year end data on safe online pharmacies showing the rise of the “affiliate network.”
While the number of legitimate online pharmacies safe for Americans remains at 4% of all, the growth of fake online pharmacies out of compliance with U.S. pharmacy laws and practice standards appears to be strongly linked to the spread of underlying source organizations called “affiliate networks” that proliferate the internet with copies of their websites.
The NABP has published a report, “Internet Drug Outlet Identification Program Progress Report for State and Federal Regulators: January 2012” which identifies 8,456 so-called online pharmacies that are out of compliance with U.S. pharmacy laws and practice standards. Of those, 8,265 appear to be network affiliated, 98%.
The NABP staff identified websites that use the same phone number, physical address, domain name registrant, website design or web business name as those being part of a rogue affiliate network. A rogue affiliate network is a group of internet drug outlets operated by one organization, which are frequently operated outside of the U.S.
“The common perception in America is that a discount retailer out there on the internet can, because of lower costs of business elsewhere, provide medication at below U.S. market rates. What they don’t know is that the medications are all coming from the same counterfeiters in India and China, and that a giant conglomerate of organized crime runs these hundreds of millions of websites that advertise as if they were ‘mom and pop’ small pharmacies on the internet,” said Carmen Catizone, NABP’s Executive Director.
[...]Pills Containing Heavy Metal Toxins Found in Circulation in China
AFP has reported that Chinese authorities have detained 22 people accused of making drug capsules using chromium, a toxic metal that can cause kidney, liver, and blood cell damage. 13 Chinese manufactured medications have been removed from domestic circulation due to excessive chromium levels.
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