News Coverage
The Partnership for Safe Medicines has been publishing information about the counterfeit drug problem around the world for more than a decade. With experts leading the organization and a committed and passionate set of writers and editors, our content is more in-depth than many other sources, which simply copy links to the news from other websites.
George M. Karavetsos’ editorial was published in The Hill on October 30, 2017. George M. Karavetsos is a partner with the global law firm DLA Piper. He formerly served as the director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigations and chief of the Narcotics Section and the executive assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Florida…
Pet medications can be expensive. The FDA has given advice on how to safely purchase your pet meds online and NeedyMed’s has shared how you might be able to use their Drug Discount Card to save money by picking up your pet’s medications at your regular pharmacy …
After seven months of studying the crisis and conducting interviews, the Opioid Commission released their 56 recommendations to help end the opioid crisis. They included targeting drug organizations and individuals who feel no shame dealing death in the form of counterfeit pills made with fentanyl…
Four years after pleading guilty in 2013, a Pennsylvania pharmacist has been sentenced to 6 months of home detention and three years probation after pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy to smuggle foreign drugs in the United States and money laundering.
The MacArthur Foundation awarded UC San Diego professor Stefan Savage a MacArthur Genius grant for the holistic approach he has taken to addressing 21st-century technological problems, including spam pharmaceutical advertisements…
In their just-released 2017 Drug Threat Assessment, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has sounded the alarm about the role counterfeit prescription pills are playing an increasingly dangerous role in national opioid deaths.
Two years ago today, Tosh Ackerman of Aptos, CA passed away after taking what he thought was a legitimate prescription pill. Unfortunately, that pill was counterfeit and contained a deadly dose of fentanyl. Tosh is just one of the countless Americans killed by counterfeit medicines. Tosh’s absence is still deeply felt by his family and friends. By taking a moment to remember those we have already lost, the Partnership for Safe Medicines hopes to shine a light on the need to prevent any future deaths from counterfeit medicines.
Instead of destroying unused medications, Med-Fast Pharmacy in Pennsylvania recycled and resold them to nursing homes. The company recently reached a settlement with the Department of Justice and agreed to a $2.6M fine…
A recently unsealed indictment brings 18 charges, including introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce & manufacturing and distributing controlled substances, against Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals and its CEO Jared Wheat…
In an unprecedented action, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced federal grand jury indictments against two Chinese nationals living and working in China. It is alleged the pair operated separate businesses that manufacture illicit fentanyl and fentanyl analogues and export them to the United States.
Oklahoma Pharmacists Association Director Debra Billingsley published an editorial on October 21, 2017 opposing drug importation proposals:
Now is not the time to allow foreign unlicensed pharmacies to start dispensing drugs into Oklahoma. It would just make it easier for drug traffickers or crooked providers to hurt our citizens.
Every panelist unequivocally stated their opposition to drug importation proposals, citing the danger to patients an unregulated drug supply chain would expose them to. Three, in particular, made cogent arguments on behalf of patient safety and drug accessibility.
An Edmonton home that was used as a pill mill for the largest fake fentanyl pill seizure in Canadian history was deemed uninhabitable until after a hazardous remediation company came in to clean the place up. This is what it was like inside…
This year Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies (ASOP) has inaugurated a Global Patient Safety Champion award to recognize individuals and organizations that are working to protect patient safety and preserve the gold standard of FDA approval for all American patients.
Authorities in British Columbia announced drug charges against two Vancouver-area residents in a case involving 40,000 fake fentanyl pills. RCMP believes countless lives were saved by keeping these counterfeit pills off the streets…
Public health officials in Seattle announced that a batch of pills found on a body tested positive for fentanyl. They urged the public to be careful, reminding them that fentanyl has no smell or taste and a simple visual inspection cannot say whether a pill is real or a counterfeit…
People think all prescription drugs cost less in Canada, but is that true? We did a price comparison for amlodipine, generic Norvasc, the sixth most frequently prescribed prescription drug in the U.S. during the first quarter of 2016. When we called a brick-and-mortar pharmacy in Canada, we were quoted the price of $24.62 for a 30-day supply, but we found those same pills at pharmacies in the U.S. for only $5.50…
AmerisourceBergen Speciality Group is part of one of the largest wholesale drug companies in the U.S. and recently admitted in federal court to having distributed millions of misbranded oncology drug products throughout the U.S. over the course of 13 years…
The United Kingdom is fighting a battle against counterfeit medicines on two front. The first fight is to keep them out of the hands of her citizens. The second fight is to not let the fake Indian pharmaceutical companies use their country as a postal hub…
Kendra Westmoreland of Maryland received a two-year prison sentence after admitting that she lied to her clients for 15 years. She was not injecting them with medical grade silicone, which it is illegal because of potential health complications. It was actually industrial grade silicone…
As PSM’s Board President, Dr. Marv Shepherd, wrote in an editorial for the Washington Examiner that was published on October 10, 2017, opening the United States to unregulated, imported drugs will offer fentanyl traffickers even more access to Americans:
“The reality is that criminals throughout the illegal supply chain from China to the streets of U.S. cities are making money at the cost of American lives. We need to be taking steps to eliminate illegal fentanyl from our communities, not providing new avenues for those who want to see just the opposite happen.”
Dr. George Patino convicted and sentenced for conspiracy, distributing Human Growth Hormone (HGH) for unauthorized medical purposes, and smuggling. He brought non-FDA approved HGH over from Mexico to treat patients with it for unapproved medical purposes…
Five of the six men who stand accused for their roles in the $78M CanadaDrugs.com counterfeit Avastin case, which saw fake cancer drugs turn up in 28 states, finally received their extradition hearing date…
The U.S. Department of Justice indicted three Florida residents for conspiracy to import, manufacture, and distribute fake prescription drugs and anabolic steroids after U.S Postal Inspectors noticed a large quantity of raw materials needed to make fake pills being shipped to them…
The owner of a pet medication company and the company itself entered guilty pleas in federal court, admitting to have smuggled and sold misbranded and unapproved pet meds to U.S. pet owner for 15 years…
Carolina Aguilar Rodriguez was neither a doctor nor a pharmacist, but that didn’t stop her from prescribing counterfeit and smuggled prescription drugs to her clients at her Houston store. She recently pleaded guilty in federal court…
Two Florida women received their federal prison sentences following years of illegally injecting clients with liquid silicone and lying to them, insisting that the substance was FDA-approved and safe when in reality, it can cause necrosis, disfigurement, pain or death…
Paul Honeman is a former Anchorage Assemblyman representing East Anchorage. He also is a retired Anchorage Police Department Lieutenant. In this September 28, 2017 editorial in The Bristol Bay Times, he highlights the dangers posed by drug importation and reminds everyone why it is currently banned…
CNN’s September 25, 2017 Healthcare Town Hall was an opportunity for prominent senators to share important ideas about ways to improve Americans’ lives, but it also included some erroneous statements about drug importation. PSM’s Board President, Dr. Marv Shepherd, sent this letter on September 29 to clarify those issues.
The owner and the manager of a company in India ran a scheme cold calling phone numbers in the U.S. and Canada hoping the person who picked up the phone would be interested in purchasing some of their counterfeit medications. Both pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in federal court…
Seeking to prevent any more deaths from fake pills made with fentanyl, the Legislature of Ontario is considering a bill that would make it illegal for anyone except pharmacists to own a pill press, an essential piece of equipment utilized in the manufacturing of counterfeit medicines…
The evening of October 26, 2015, twenty-nine-year-old Aptos, California resident Tosh Ackerman took a benedryl and part of a Xanax pill to help him sleep. He never woke up, and his girlfriend found him dead the next day. Ackerman died because the Xanax he took was counterfeit. It contained a fatal dose of a powerful synthetic opioid called fentanyl.
A new report released April 10, 2018 by The Partnership for Safe Medicines (PSM) illustrates the growing deadly toll that illegally-imported fentanyl is having on communities throughout the U.S. PSM’s analysis confirms reports of counterfeit medicines made with fentanyl in 43 states, with fentanyl-related deaths confirmed in 22 states. The updated findings follow a report released by PSM last September that found a presence of counterfeit fentanyl in 40 states and related deaths in 16 states.
The FDA took action against 500 websites operated by affiliate networks, including the notorious GlavMed, associated with the Win32.Kelihos.b trojan, used to distribute spam via infected computers. GlavMed’s found, Igor Gusev, allegedly operated a sister entity which directed traffic to various cities operating under the name Canadian Pharmacy.
The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office announced the arrest of Jesus Madueno, who was attempting to sell 3,500 counterfeit oxycodone to undercover officers. The pills were made with fentanyl…
The Nevada Sheriffs’ and Chiefs’ Association sent a letter to Senator Heller explaining their reasons for opposing S. 469, the bill that would allow drug importation…
State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman warned citizens in western New York that fake opioid pills made with fentanyl have been discovered for the first time in their part of the state: “These poison pills are the latest troubling development in our state’s opioid crisis.”…
Authorities announced an additional indictment may be filed in the Shamo fake pills made with fentanyl case in Utah. Investigators are also trying to link any overdose deaths to the drug ring and will file charges if any are found…
NH couple pleaded guilty to importing hundreds of thousands of fake pills from India and selling them via the internet to customers throughout the U.S…
As fentanyl makes its way eastward across Canada, the police in the city of Ottawa are leaving nothing to chance and are distributing naloxone kits to all officers to prevent overdoses…
Generic drugs can help you to save on your prescription costs. We did a price comparison and a 90-day supply of generic Abilify only costs $96.18 in the U.S. while Canadians do not have a generic version available to them and must pay $372.73 for a 90-day supply of the brand-name version…
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.”
Georgia authorities have discovered counterfeit pain pills made with fentanyl analogues for a second time this summer.
Georgia resident Betty Jean Collins became an unwitting victim of the state’s June counterfeit Percocet incident when she borrowed one of her husband’s pain pills and ended up in the hospital with a fentanyl overdose.
A Florida resident received a sentence of four years in federal prison for operating multiple internet pharmacies that sold drugs sourced from Romania and India without requiring a prescription…
Quesada was originally indicted in October 2015. He allegedly used his websites to sell medication to unsuspecting U.S. patients that were unaware they were buying misbranded and counterfeit prescription drugs manufactured in India.
Mexican authorities announced their largest fentanyl seizure to date, which included 30,000 counterfeit pills made with fentanyl. The final destination of all of the fentanyl seized was believed to be U.S. streets…
Marv Shepherd, President of Board of Directors for the Partnership for Safe Medicines, reexamined the possible effects on Canada’s drug supply should the U.S. legalize drug importation…
Police in Edmonton, Alberta announced the seizure of 130,000 counterfeit pills containing fentanyl from multiple residences in the area, including one home converted into a fentanyl pill processing lab…
On May 22, 2016, law enforcement officers were dispatched to a residence in Madison, Wisconsin, in response to a report of a 37-year-old man who had stopped breathing. The victim was dead by the time officers arrived at his residence. An autopsy later confirmed that the victim’s death was caused by acute intoxication due to the combined effects of a substance called U-47700 and Benzodiazepine Analogue (Etizolam).
A young New York mother is dead and her family is demanding answers after she received injections to enhance her buttocks, CBS News reports. Latesha Bynum, 32, went to a “doctor” practicing out of an apartment in the Gramercy Park neighborhood in New York. Within hours of having the procedure, Ms. Bynum had to be…
Metformin, generic Glucophage, was the fifth most frequently prescribed medication in the U.S. during the first quarter of 2016. PSM did a price comparison and found that the same prescription costs over three times as much in Canada as it does in the U.S….
In a television report for NBC Nightly News, Lester Holt and his investigative team were able to find Chinese-made, bulk fentanyl powder for sale on the Internet after searching for “buy fentanyl” online. When his crew sent an enquiry email to one of the listed sellers, they responded: “Hello, We have a very potent fentanyl…
In early July, European authorities reported that counterfeit versions of Omnitrope, a drug containing human growth hormone, were found in France, Denmark, and Mexico. The counterfeit Omnitrope was designed to look like it was made by a large drug manufacturer, but it contained no active ingredient. Shortly thereafter, German authorities announced that a fake version of a schizophrenia drug, Xeplion, was discovered in Germany. The Xeplion was also a knock-off, mimicking packaging used in Bulgaria and Romania.
These incidents are the latest in a stream of reports about counterfeit drugs throughout Europe. The problem lies in lax security of the supply chain — distributors, middlemen and wholesalers between the drug maker and the consumer. Despite ongoing problems with the EU drug supply chain, Congress is currently considering a bill that would open the U.S. to imports from the EU and elsewhere. We can’t have a serious debate about drug importation without understanding what is going on in Europe.
The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) has just released their Internet Drug Outlet Identification Program Progress Report for State and Federal Regulators: August 2017, outlining the current state of fake online pharmacies that sell to U.S. patients.
Out of 11,688 Internet drug outlets reviewed, the NABP found that 11,142 (95.8%) were “operating out of compliance with state and federal laws and/or NABP patient safety and pharmacy standard practices.”
An August 23, 2017 editorial in the Journal of American of the American Medical Association (JAMA) supports President Trump’s stated intention to declare the nation’s opioid epidemic a national emergency.
More than 60,000 Americans died from drug overdoses last year. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 100 times more powerful than morphine, caused one-fifth of those fatalities. Local law enforcement and health professionals are working at a feverish pace to prevent fatal overdoses, yet at the same time, some federal lawmakers have proposed legislation that would make it legal to import drugs that are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration into the United States from questionable sources. Such legislation would provide a gateway for international criminal organizations to import counterfeit prescription drugs and deadly illegal opioids, including fentanyl…
The August newsletter from the National Drug Early Warning System (NDEWS) News describes how the Georgia Poison Center (GPC) played a crucial role in the early detection of deadly, fentanyl-laced fake Percocet in Georgia. NDEWS describes how a call from an emergency-room doctor triggered the process of identifying the cause of the poisonings and cases:…
A 24-year-old Bucks County, PA woman will spend up to 18 years in jail for selling counterfeit pills containing synthetic opioids that ended up killing two people. The fake pills looked like Percocet but contained fentanyl and acetyl fentanyl…
As reported by Tucson News Now, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and Tempe Police Department uncovered 30,000 counterfeit pills made with fentanyl during a traffic stop on August 13, 2017…
Dr. Diana Anda Norbergs, a Florida oncologist convicted in November 2016 of importing misbranded, non-FDA approved cancer drugs from unlicensed suppliers, has been sentenced to almost six years in federal prison, according to a report in the Tampa Bay Times. The Department of Justice (DOJ) indictment alleged that Norbergs purchased prescription cancer treatments from unlicensed foreign…
This Just In: Law Enforcement Groups Oppose Drug Importation Proposals Drug importation endangers patients and the American drug supply and worsens the opioid crisis “[T]he IACP is gravely concerned about the dangers law enforcement personnel and their canine drug detecting partners are subject to each time they come into contact with fentanyl [..] the IACP…
A Port Angeles, WA area naturopathic physician pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce. Richard Marschall prescribed human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) to approximately 60 people for weight loss between February 2014 and February 2017.
Khaled Farouk Elgayar of North Olmstead, Ohio, has been charged in federal court with selling misbranded drugs, the Department of Justice (DOJ) reports. Elgayar purchased in bulk a variety of supposedly herbal supplements with names such as “African Superman,” “Hard Ten Days,” “Herb Viagra,” “libigrow,” “S.W.A.G” and “Triple PowerZEN,” for resale in the United States,…
Omeprazole is the generic version of Prilosec and it was the fourth most prescribed medication in the U.S. during the first quarter of 2016. We did a price check and were able to find it for sale at a U.S. pharmacy for almost 80% cheaper than in Canada…
Counterfeit pills containing fentanyl have been found in 40 states. Countless families grieve for the loved ones lost to the opioid epidemic. But what is fentanyl? How is it getting into the U.S.? What makes it so deadly? Who does fentanyl threaten the most and how can Americans protect themselves? The Partnership for Safe Medicines has created this infographic to answer many of the questions you may have about fentanyl and its dangers.
DEA agents suspect Mexican drug cartels are behind the wave over overdoses and deaths caused by fake Percocet pills made with fentanyl analogues. The DEA is exploring possible ties between the national wave of fake pain pills laced with fentanyl and Mexican crime organizations, reports Georgia news station Alive11. DEA Special Agent Dan Salter told…
The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) awarded PetRescueRX, the nation’s only online pet pharmacy that donates 100% of their profits to animal shelters and nonprofit rescue groups, a .pharmacy domain.
The President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis has released an interim report that strongly asserts that we, as a nation, are “in crisis.” The first recommendation from the Commission is for a national emergency to be declared. Other recommendations include…
The National Sheriffs’ Association passed a resolution at their conference opposing pending drug importation proposals. The resolution highlighted multiple reasons why drug importation is a bad idea for everyone…
The Washington Post recently highlighted some of Consumer Reports’ best strategies to help you lower your healthcare cost. Advice covered a range of topics including getting savvy when it comes to medication, making sure you save at the doctor’s office and hospital, being wise about billing and embracing a healthy lifestyle…
The former owner of a Leawood, Kansas business, Midwest Medical Aesthetics, has been charged with importation of misbranded drugs. Kathleen Stegman has been charged with illegally importing $194,000 worth of non-FDA approved “Botox,” Dysport,” “Restylane,” “Perlane,” and “Sculptra,” according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Stegman is currently serving 51 months in prison after…
According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), a Massachusetts man pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit drugs and to distribute a controlled substance. Robert Medeiros, a 32-years-old from Gardner, was one of six people arrested and charged on April 12, 2017. The group is alleged to…
The bills before Congress would remove many of the license and oversight requirements on the drugs imported into the United States by lifting those barriers, inviting an influx of bogus pharmaceutical products from the same crime rings that are selling these drugs in other countries around the world that would love better access to the U.S. market.
Law enforcement would inevitably be tasked with policing the problem, at a time when most prosecutors and law enforcement officials have their hands full with the growing opioid crisis. One of the biggest killers is fentanyl, a potent, synthetic opioid pain medication that is being laced into counterfeit pills.
A 47-year-old Houston woman appeared in federal court in June 2017 to face charges for allegedly smuggling a counterfeit drug into the U.S. and trafficking it through her weight loss and nutrition store located in a west Houston strip mall.
A new survey conducted by the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies (ASOP) has found that a majority of Americans are in the dark when it comes to dangers posed by unlicensed online pharmacies.
Cincinnati resident Shoaib Haroon was recently sentenced to five years in federal prison for his role in a scheme to sell people counterfeit drugs. Mr. Haroon received and filled the orders out of his home. He was observed mailing 80 packages each day out of the same post office. Inside the packages were counterfeit pills in plastic bags.
The National Post reports that since October 2015, Health Canada has stopped almost 10,000 packages containing counterfeit prescription drugs at the Canadian border. New reports from a 2010 incident reveal that counterfeit drugs ended up in 260 pharmacies and four hospitals in Australia. Patients were protected by a thorough hospital pharmacist who noticed “it was grittier than normal.”
Counterfeit Altuzan, known as Avastin in the U.S., resurfaces in Cyprus and India four years after FDA reported U.S. doctors purchasing it.
Freeh warned that allowing drug importation from Canada was akin to allowing drugs to be imported from anywhere. Quality would be at risk, and the opioid crisis, an epidemic that killed over 33,000 Americans in 2015, would only get worse. He said that allowing drug importation, “…will not only fuel that, but it will also, in my opinion, encourage a lot of criminal groups and organizations that heretofore have not been involved in this trade, but will see huge opportunities to enter the market.”
A few years ago, Maine introduced similar legislation that allowed patients to buy drugs from foreign pharmacies. We, too, wanted to provide patients with lower-cost medicines.
It proved to be a big mistake. Instead of getting drugs from Canada, we got dangerous and ineffective counterfeit pills from other countries. Maine’s disastrous experience with counterfeit Canadian drug imports should serve as a lesson to our lawmakers to say no to drug importation legislation.
During my law enforcement career, spanning four decades, I have spent a great deal of time investigating crimes related to illegal drug use and trafficking. The growing scourge of methamphetamine and opioid use is unlike other crimes I have prosecuted in the past. It has literally changed the way we protect our citizens and officers. In addition to the traditional equipment carried by an officer, they must now equip themselves with Naloxone to counteract the effects of an opioid overdose, thusly, amending our existing policies has become necessary.
In the midst of a nationwide epidemic of opioid addiction fueled by illicit smuggling of drugs from overseas, and coming on the heels of a year in which U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized over $73 million worth of counterfeit medicines at our nation’s ports, some members of Congress have suggested a novel approach to these growing threats: “opening the floodgates.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer published this editorial by George M. Karavetsos, a partner with the global law form DLA Piper, and former director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Office of Criminal Investigations.
Proposed Drug Importation Law Will Worsen U.S. Opioid Epidemic
More than 60,000 Americans died from drug overdoses last year. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 100 times more powerful than morphine, caused one-fifth of those fatalities. Local law enforcement and health professionals are working at a feverish pace to prevent fatal overdoses. Even librarians in drug-plagued neighborhoods . . .
A series of recent cases across the country illustrate how dangerous unlicensed and counterfeit cosmetic treatments can be. Having filler injected should be considered a medical procedure, not a cosmetic treatment. The FDA has NOT approved liquid silicone or silicone gel for injection to fill wrinkles or augment tissues anywhere in the body.
In the last two months, three cases illustrated just how dangerous it is to seek beauty treatment injections from anyone other than a licensed medical professional . . .
When policymakers talk about drug importation, they often make comparisons to importation of food. “If we can import produce safely,” they say, “don’t tell me we can’t import medicine.”
The truth is that importing food safely is difficult. The stakes are even higher when we import medicine: no one expects lettuce to cure cancer . . .
In a recent series about the counterfeit medicines problem, Life Science Leader focused on organizations, including the Partnership for Safe Medicines (PSM), that are working to educate the public and keep counterfeit medicines from hurting people.
Dr. Marv Shepherd, president of the PSM and professor emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Pharmacy, said, “I see improvement in industry efforts to stop counterfeiters, but I don’t see improvement in results.”
Update: In May 2017, Deanna Roberts pleaded guilty to illegally injecting persons with liquid silicone and for introducing liquid silicone that was obtained by fraud into interstate commerce. Roberts, who continued to administer industrial grade silicone injections even after she knew that one her patients had died and others had been hospitalized, was sentenced to…
Timeline Leading to the Extradition of CanadaDrugs Principals Image courtesy of Legitscript.com According to CBC News, new information has come to light in the case against six executives of CanadaDrugs.com. The company, its affiliates, and associates in the United Kingdom and Barbados stand accused of illegally importing and selling $78 million worth of unapproved, misbranded…
June 29, 2017 This is a reprint of an FDA Alert. When a company announces a recall, market withdrawal, or safety alert, the FDA posts the company’s announcement as a public service. FDA does not endorse either the product or the company. For Immediate Release Contact Consumers sales@hardcoreformulations.com 1-855-773-6826 San Marcos, TX, Hardcore Formulations is…
Email spam is one of the curses of our online lives. At the very least, it is a nuisance, and at its worst, it distributes false information, dangerous malware, and phishing messages. TG Daily recently reported how one company determined that there was not an online Canadian pharmacy behind email spam messages, but a massive…
As reported by WSB-TV2 Atlanta, chemistry experts at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) issued a public safety warning to the state’s citizens. Agents warned that the latest crisis is counterfeit pills containing fentanyl and fentanyl analogues sold to unsuspecting people on the street. GBI spokeswoman Nelly Mile called the situation unprecedented, noting that, “If…
Many people struggle to lose weight, and under a doctor’s supervision, diet pills can be a safe and effective way to reach your goal. Some people, like Elna Baker, are so afraid of regaining the weight that they continue taking the pills by purchasing them while in other countries or ordering them from online pharmacies. While…
Dr. Kenneth D. Nahum, his oncology practice, and Ann Walsh, his wife and the practice manager, have agreed to pay the U.S. $1.7 million to resolve allegations of violating the False Claims Act. They stood accused of ordering drugs from a foreign distributor not approved to sell them in the U.S. and administering those drugs…
When Dr. Watts’ veterinary patient stopped responding to medication, Dr. Watts questioned the source of the medication. The pet’s owner purchased the medication from online. When the doctor called the manufacturer with the owner in the room, the manufacturer stated that they could not guarantee the product from that source and considered it potentially counterfeit.…
Online pharmacy Canada Drugs, under indictment for selling millions of dollars worth of fake and misbranded cancer medications to U.S. medical offices, still retains its license to operate from the College of Pharmacists of Manitoba, according to CBC’s Karen Pauls. Despite accusations from U.S. federal prosecutors for allegedly selling $78 million of unapproved, misbranded and…
Police in Ottawa made a disturbing discovery when conducting a drug bust, CBC Canada is reporting. In addition to finding a typical array of cash, drugs and guns, Ottawa police found a quantity of an “unknown powder” that has yet to be analyzed, and a counterfeit pill press capable of producing 20,000 counterfeit pills an…
Almost three years after the original grand jury indictment in November 2014, the owner of Canada Drugs and five of his co-conspirators were arrested on June 14 and 15 in Canada under the Extradition Act, reports CBC News. Kristjan Thorkelson, Thomas Haughton, Ronald Sigurdson, Darren Chalus, Troy Nakamura, and James Trueman have been arrested in…
A Utah man and five friends are facing federal drug trafficking, drug counterfeiting, mail and wire-fraud charges for allegedly distributing hundreds of thousands of counterfeit prescription medications laced with fentanyl, a Department of Justice (DOJ) press release reports. The DOJ alleges that Aaron Michael Shamo and his co-conspirators turned his suburban Cottonwood Heights home into…
Kevin St. James, Commissioner of Rockingham County in New Hampshire is very concerned that Congressional representatives will pass drug importation legislation without giving any thought to the explosive impact that opening our borders to drug shipments will have on America’s deadly opioid/fentanyl crisis.