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.
The alleged co-conspirator to a prominent Wisconsin pharmacist accused of selling counterfeit drugs had previously been arrested and charged for running a sham pharmacy in Texas. Balbir Bhogal was recently arrested, along with renowned Madison, Wisonsin, pharmacist Marla Ahlgrimm, for allegedly importing and selling millions of tablets of phony erectile dysfunction medication and other…
Today Google filed a civil lawsuit against a number of illegal online pharmacies, claiming that the businesses violated the search engine's advertisement policy. Michael Zwibelman, Google's Litigation Counsel, wrote in a post on the company's blog that it has been battling these illegal online pharmacies for years in an effort to keep advertisements promoting illegal…
Police officials in the landlocked African Nation of Uganda are setting up anti-narcotics desks at all of the police stations around the country in an effort to fight the problem of counterfeit drugs. Inspector general of Police Kale Kayihura told the New Vision that the desks are being set up to combat the rising number…
Two Nigerians have been charged with the theft of pharmaceuticals valued at $18.5 million Nigerian from a pharmacy in Lagos. Uchenna Ogodo worked as a pharmacy attendant for ICEE Pharmaceutical Limited, according to Next, an African news source. Prosecutor Innocent Effiong alleged before the Ebute Meta Magistrate’s Court that he and his accomplice, 35-year-old Patrick…
A Maryland man and his getaway driver were arrested just 10 hours after they allegedly committed a pharmaceutical theft. John Collins Jr., 19, allegedly committed a robbery with a loaded gun at the Darlington Pharmacy in Darlington, Maryland, according to Maryland State Police, reports The Aegis. Collins, of Port Deposit, Maryland, reportedly took more than…
Dr. Paul Orhii, the Director General of Nigeria’s National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), recently survived an attack on his life.
Unknown gunmen attempted to kill Orhii, whose agency fights the problem of counterfeit drugs in Nigeria, as he was returning from his village in northern Benue state to the capital city of Abuja, NAFDAC spokesman Abubakar Jimoh told Afrique en Ligne.
Victor Baca, owner of Village Pharmacy in Portales, New Mexico, is aware of the rising risk businesses like his face from criminals who steal drugs to resell them, and that is why he and his staff are preparing for the worst. “We’ve had training for our employees as to what to do in case of…
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder recently spoke about the dangers posed by illegal online pharmacies at an opiate abuse conference in Montpelier, Vermont. Holder spoke of the importance of supporting law enforcement agencies, giving them the tools they require to stop not only drug abuse, but illegal online pharmacies as well. Holder described the deployment…
The Wisconsin Department of Regulation and Licensing is currently investigating whether it should impose disciplinary action against a pharmacist accused of importing counterfeit drugs on top of the federal penalties she may face. Marla Ahlgrimm was recently booked on federal charges of conspiracy to import counterfeit drugs and is currently free on bail, according to…
Over the last three months nearly £4 million in fake goods were confiscated at London’s Heathrow Airport, including £1 million worth of fake erectile dysfunction drugs. According to the BBC, those figures indicate that the amount of fake goods seized by the UK Border Agency (UKBA) has more than doubled since last year. Last year…
The Manufacturer’s Association of Nigeria (MAN) is calling on the country’s National Assembly to enact stiffer penalties against people who smuggle in hazardous materials, including fake drugs, into Nigeria. Speaking at MAN’s stakeholder’s forum on fake, counterfeit, smuggling and other illicit trades in Abuja, the organization’s president Chief Kola Jamodu said that in addition to…
A 61-year-old man from Birmingham, England, was recently sentenced to serve nine months in prison for selling unlicensed erectile dysfunction medication. Last year an investigation by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) found that John Henry Atkinson was illegally selling potentially fake drugs. Atkinson was found to be in possession of two boxes…
Nigeria’s National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has approved the use of the anti-counterfeiting technology radio frequency identification (RFID) tags in the fight against fake drugs. NAFDAC has plans to require all the pharmacies in the country to adopt the method once a sufficient portion of drugs are tagged, according to…
Russia recently adopted new guidelines for the destruction of counterfeit drugs as well as for medications that are substandard. The new law, which was passed on September 3, will require that the destruction of all fake drugs be handled by organizations that are licensed for the collection, transportation and disposal of grade I-IV waste, according…
India’s Commerce Ministry is planning to require all pharmaceutical exports to utilize barcode technology, according to PharmaBiz.com. The news source reports that the Commerce Secretary met with Pharmexcil, India’s pharmaceutical exports promotion council, and accepted its recommendation to employ the technology. Pharmexcil proposed three ideas at the meeting: barcoding, digital mass serialization (DMS)/unique number and…
September 14,2010 – Dan Rather reports on the Nigerian Drug Enforcement Agency, NAFDAC, and it’s attempts to protect Nigerian consumers from fake drugs in In The Mysterious Case Kevin Xu. The broadcast was shown September 14, at 8pm ET on HDNet. Dan Rather spoke to Paul Orhii, Director General of The National Agency for…
September 14, 2010 – In The Mysterious Case Kevin Xu Dan Rather investigates the fake prescription medication market and attempts of counterfeiters to infiltrate the US market. The broadcast was shown September 14, at 8pm ET on HDNet. Dan Rather spoke to Andre Watson, US special agent in charge of immigration and customs enforcement about…
Two technology companies have teamed up to produce an anti-counterfeiting technology that could help with the identification of fake drugs. One company produces a relatively inexpensive radio tag and the other makes an affordable reader, according to VentureBeat.com. The technology employed in these devices is radio frequency identification (RFID). The tag transmits a radio wave…
An $11,000 reward has been offered to help find the second suspect in a robbery and shooting that took place at a California pharmacy. Recently two men entered a Rexall pharmacy in North Highlands, California, and demanded the painkiller OxyContin at gunpoint, according to the Sacramento Bee. During the ensuing shootout between a pharmacy employee…
Law enforcement officers and pharmaceutical industry officials say that the theft of pharmaceuticals is on the rise across the United States, reports the Fresno Bee. The news source reports that while there are no official numbers of nationwide pharmaceutical thefts because of variety of reasons, federal drug authorities, pharmaceutical companies, pharmacies, state officials and local…
The theft of pharmaceuticals is leading to the creation of a black market for anti-malaria drugs in Africa, according to Willis Akhwale of the Kenyan Ministry of Health. Akhwale originally told the Wall Street Journal about the problem in 2005, but he says the problem remains five years later. Often times, government stores of badly-needed…
A director with Nigeria's National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) was made the head of a regional task force to fight fake drugs. Hashim Yusufu was appointed to the position by the 63rd meeting of the World Health Assembly, according to AllAfrica.com. Yusufu said that Nigeria was leading Africa's fight against…
The Zanzibar Food, Drugs and Cosmetics Board and Interpol’s Tanzania branch recently impounded a quantity of counterfeit drugs following an operation named Mamba 111. It was the first operation since the board was created and resulted in hundreds of cartons of counterfeit drugs being impounded, according to The Tanzanian Citizen. The counterfeit drugs were confiscated…
A new trial date has been set for the Paralympic curling champion and retired Richmond dentist charged with trafficking counterfeit erectile dysfunction drugs. Jim Armstrong, 59 year old retired dentist and champion curler, is charged with trafficking fake erectile dysfunction medications with his 28-year-old son, a dentist from Richmond, British Columbia, according to the…
Officials from Nigeria and several of its neighboring countries will meet in Abuja, Nigeria, to discuss the recent cholera epidemic as well as counterfeit drugs. The meetings, to be held on October 17 and 18, will focus on the epidemic that has already claimed the lives of 350 people in Nigeria, according to 234Next.com. A…
Lund University Researchers from Sweden and the U.K. recently developed an anti-counterfeiting technology that they hope can combat the problem of fake drugs, particularly in Africa, according to AlphaGalileo.org The researchers have created a prototype of the device. It resembles a small suitcase and users place the medication in its packaging in the device,…
Two men were recently sentenced to prison for their involvement in an illegal online pharmacy. Daniel L. Dailey’s company, PowerMedica, illegally sold steroids and human growth hormone to thousands of customers over the internet. Dailey, who admitted that the company didn’t require prescriptions or customers to be seen by doctors, was sentenced to 46 months…
Distributor Sentenced to Prison A Canadian man was sentenced to 33 months in prison by an Arizona judge after pleading guilty to distributing counterfeit drugs earlier this year. Hazim Gaber had pleaded guilty to five counts of wire fraud in connection to selling a white powder he claimed was the experimental cancer drug dichloroacetate…
The Drug Enforcement Administration and government, community, public health and law enforcement partners announced a nationwide prescription drug “Take-Back” initiative that seeks to prevent increased pill abuse and theft. DEA will be collecting potentially dangerous expired, unused, and unwanted prescription drugs for destruction at sites nationwide on Saturday, September 25 th from 10 a.m. to…
An English technology company is working on a new, low-cost anti-counterfeiting technology to help combat the problem of fake medications. The company producing this new anti-counterfeiting technology will place a code on drug packaging that it hopes will be almost impossible to duplicate, according to Cambridge Business News. The new technology will place…
Germany’s pharmacy association recently affirmed its belief in the security of the country’s pharmaceutical supply chain. The ABDA said that Germans should be confident when taking their medication despite some reports of counterfeit drugs in the country, according to SecuringPharma.com. “The safest way to get drugs in Germany is any one of the 21,500 community…
Chinese police say they have apprehended a gang of safe crackers that is believed to be responsible for a recent theft at a pharmaceutical company. It is believed that the five suspects were responsible for breaking into a safe at a pharmaceutical enterprise in southern Beijing’s Economic-Technological Development Area (ETDA) on August 5, according to…
Police in Malawi recently seized a number of fake products, including counterfeit drugs, in Mangochi Township. It is believed that the value of the confiscated goods totaled thousands of dollars, reports the Nation. According to Mangochi police spokesman Rodrick Maida, the counterfeit drugs and other phony products were taken from five Rwandese nationals and nine…
A South Carolina woman is accused of selling the painkillers she stole from the pharmacy where she worked. Noni Anyanna Williams allegedly stole 8,000 hydrocone 10 pills, which are also known as Lortab, from the Rite Aid where she worked in Spartanburg, South Carolina, according to GoUpstate.com. Police officials say that Williams used doctors’ Drug…
Federal authorities are beginning to crackdown on online pharmacies that distribute prescription drugs without prescriptions. Federal agents recently filed court papers in Illinois and Utah over two online pharmacies that are allegedly run by the same man, Kyle Rootsaert, according to CNN. The agents had obtained search warrant affidavits for the two pharmacies in Des…
A pharmaceutical company recently alerted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that some drugs taken during a 2008 pharmaceutical cargo theft may be beginning to reappear in the market. On October 17, 2008, a shipment of Carbatrol and Adderall XR made by Shire Pharmaceuticals was stolen en route between the company’s manufacturing facility in North…
Eighteen countries, including the U.S., recently participated in military maneuvers in Panama City, Panama to prepare for any potential terrorist act that could disrupt maritime traffic. Over the course of 12 days more than 2,000 civilian and military personnel took part in the exercises designed to protect the canal that handles 5 percent of all…
Authorities in the Philippines recently arrested a man from Pakistan for allegedly selling pills that can cause abortions, some of which may have been counterfeit. Mohammed Hanif, a 53-year-old, was arrested for selling the drugs in a supermarket parking lot in Libis, said chief inspector Jerome Balbontin of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit in…
Figures recently released by a cargo security firm show that Mexico has become a popular spot for pharmaceutical cargo theft. In the second quarter of 2010 there were six pharmaceutical cargo thefts in Mexico, compared to three in the first three months of the year, according to logistics security firm FreightWatch. While the number of…
The amount of counterfeit drugs arriving in Switzerland increased 75 percent in the first half of the year, according to health officials. The Swiss Agency for Therapeutic Products (Swissmedic) said that it had received 992 reports of suspicious, potentially counterfeit drug imports from Federal Customs officials through the first half of 2010, according to SwissInfo.ch.…
Researchers for an internet security company are warning consumers about a new email spam campaign that is sending users to an ostensibly online Canadian pharmacy. Avira, a German antivirus company, says that the campaign sends spam to email accounts that are similar to those associated with phishing attacks, Softpedia.com. “In the recent past we saw…
South Korea estimates the quantity of counterfeit erectile dysfunction (ED) medication smuggled into the country is 23 times greater than five years ago, according to the Korea Herald. The National Tax Service (NTS) has detected 18 cases of smuggled impotence medicine worth 90.6 billion won ($77 million) in total for the first six months of…
China released the names of thirty-three counterfeit medications on the loose. The State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) disclosed on August 17 that thirty-three counterfeit medicines are circulating in the country and urged local and regional governments to vigilantly monitor local pharmacies and medical institutions for counterfeit copies of trademarked medications. Tongrentang (TRT), a prestigious…
A new ‘track and trace’ technology is being developed to uniquely mark pharmaceutical products and improve traceability. The technique will allow faster identification and resolution of any manufacturing quality problems but will also prove invaluable as an anti-counterfeit measure because the specific coding and validation systems are almost impossible to copy. This technology…
Germany is investigating dozens of pharmacies in the north of the country for suspected involvement in the distribution of illegal medicines, including counterfeits, reports securingpharma.com. Prosecutors have brought charges against one pharmacist from the Braunschweig region who is accused of handling €1.68m-worth. Pharmacies in Hamburg, Celle, Verden and Kiel are also being probed, reports the…
A federal judge recently sentenced a man to four years in prison for his part in operating an illegal online pharmacy that distributed anabolic steroids to a number of high-profile individuals. J. Michael Bennet, a pharmacist, was one of five people found guilty earlier this year of running the online pharmacy, called Applied Pharmacy Services…
AA packaging machinery manufacturer has proposed a new anti-counterfeiting technology that may help protect people from counterfeit drugs. The proposed technology would place a serialized label on the side of the individual blister packs and also put a synchronized marking on the bottom of each drug container, according to Packaging Digest. The marking on…
A company that has registered 8 percent of the world’s website domain names has been accused of registering about one-third of all the world’s illegal online pharmacies’ websites. Critics are calling on Demand Media to end its registration of illegal online pharmacies, as well as saying it should stop some of its other controversial activities,…
A Nigerian businessman was recently arraigned for allegedly importing counterfeit drugs into the country. Paulinus Ejike Onuah is accused of importing counterfeit drugs into Nigeria, including fake versions of Lincocin Capsule, Ampiclox, Atesenate and Postinor, according to PM News. Onuah was arraigned by the National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) in front…
Two international pharmaceutical companies recently announced that they would use SaaS-based anti-counterfeiting technology to combat counterfeit drugs. This type of anti-counterfeiting technology places a scratchable area on drug packaging. The consumer then scratches it to reveal a number. That number is then sent via text message to a government agency, which in turn sends it…
A technology company has entered an agreement with a number of pharmaceutical companies in India to supply them with an anti-counterfeiting technology. By using nanotechnology the company says it can track medications through the supply chain and thus may prevent counterfeit drugs from entering it. Specifically, the technology puts unique “fingerprints” on products that can…
A number of illegal online pharmacies are selling an acne-fighting drug that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) pulled from the market last year. Accutane first appeared in the U.S. in 1982, but over the years it was revealed that the medication could cause a number of serious side effects including inflammatory bowel disease…
Nowadays it seems like everything can be done on cell phones; from taking pictures to checking the score of the ballgame, everything is seemingly in the palm of one’s hand. Now a company is introducing an application (or “app”) for smart phones that will theoretically allow drug manufactures to more closely monitor the pharmaceutical supply…
Counterfeit antibiotics without the power to cure bacterial infections were seized at Abuja airport. A report published yesterday in The Hindu Business Line, a Chennai-based business journal, described an incident in which a counterfeit version of V.S. International’s ciprofloxacin, believed to have originated in China, was seized by Nigeria’s regulatory authority, The National Agency for…
Counterfeit drugs may be on the rise in the Pacific Northwest, posing a serious health risk to those who depend on prescription medications. Some pharmaceutical industry experts say that the production of counterfeit drugs is a growing rapidly and America’s northwest region is one of the main places where this is occurring, reports KIRO radio.…
Developing nations have struggled mightily with counterfeit drugs, like when 400 people in Nigeria, Haiti and Bangladesh died from taking a medication treated with wallpaper remover, and that is why anti-counterfeiting technologies can be important in preventing counterfeit drugs from entering the secure pharmaceutical supply chain. One such technology has been in use for diabetes…
While many anti-counterfeiting technologies focus on protecting consumers from counterfeit drugs through unique and hard-to-duplicate packaging, there is another way to ensure the authenticity of a medication: edible microtags. A number of companies have been working to develop this anti-counterfeiting technology after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released guidance on the matter last…
Ensuring that medications are authentic and not counterfeit drugs is essential for pharmaceutical companies to maintain patient safety. Now there is a new technology that appears to be able to do just that. Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, tiny chips that can be tracked, have been used to track animals in the agriculture industry to…
NBC’s Today show aired a piece this morning about counterfeits. Host Matt Lauer, who takes Lipitor, is shown two packages of pills. One bag has counterfeit Lipitor pills and the other one has the real drug. He looks at it and cannot figure out which is which. Check out the clip: Watch the full clip…
In the past five years many unscrupulous individuals have tried to cash in on the market by producing counterfeit drugs. One convicted counterfeiter is Martin Hickman, who made millions of dollars by sellingknockoffs of Pfizer’s popular impotence drug, Viagra, on more than 150 websites, according to Business Week. The drug maker eventually caught Hickman and…
REMARKS BY THE VICE PRESIDENT AND VICTORIA ESPINEL, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ENFORCEMENT COORDINATOR, ON THE U.S. GOVERNMENT’S INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ENFORCEMENT STRATEGY Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Washington, D.C. 11:17 A.M. EDT THE VICE PRESIDENT: Welcome, everybody. We’re going to be relatively brief here. Thank you for being here. I’m going to ask Victoria, who was responsible for…
The following excerpts of today’s White House briefing on the Joint Strategic Plan for Intellectual Property Enforcement are relevant to the problem of counterfeit drugs. Vice President Biden clearly identifies the problem facing consumers and patients today. To learn more about our take on this announcement, see our press release. Vice President: “We need…
In mid-May 2010, a collection of leaders in the pharmaceutical space joined to launch the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies (ASOP), of which the Partnership for Safe Medicines (PSM) is an educating party. We caught up with Libby Baney, an advisor at B&D Consulting who counsels the Alliance, to learn more about its mission. PSM:…
The Partnership for Safe Medicines (PSM) commends mainstream search engines Microsoft and Yahoo for their recent decision requiring U.S. pharmaceutical advertisers to be accredited by the Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites (VIPPS) program in order to advertise online. Google was the first engine to require pharmaceutical advertisers to be VIPPS-accredited, a move the PSM commended…
On May 27, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Intellectual Property Center (GIPC) held an event to address intellectual property (IP) rights, a discussion that extended to issues of counterfeit and substandard medicines in developing parts of the world. PSM Executive Director Scott LaGanga moderated a panel discussion with Sproxil’s Ashifi Gogo, Dr. Vishal Patel…
Earlier today, the Guardian’s Technology Blog posted a malware roundup to alert readers of scams and spam making their way around the Internet. Disturbingly, author Chris Arthur found that a known rogue pharmacy has set up shop on Twitter. The Official Canadian Pharmacy at Canadian-Drugshop.com uses the Twitter handle @canadianshop to boldly display its offerings,…
Given the growing threat of counterfeit drugs around the world, the Partnership for Safe Medicines (PSM) goes to great lengths to inform and educate consumers, health care professionals and policymakers about this multifaceted issue. Most recently, we submitted recommendations to the office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC) following its request for comments regarding…
At the end of February, the Partnership for Safe Medicines (PSM) answered the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) call for comments on their docket concerning the Promotion of FDA-Regulated Medical Products Using the Internet and Social Media Tools. We submitted our recommendations on the tail of Google’s change to its online advertising policies, requiring…
Each year, Partnership for Safe Medicines Vice President Dr. Bryan Liang hosts a health policy conference in San Diego. We’re happy to report that all seats have been filled for his March 26, 2010 conference, “Pharmaceutical Crime: Investigating and Prosecuting Drug Diversion and Counterfeiting,” sponsored by the Institute of Health Law Studies at the California…
Nigeria's National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has launched a text messaging service that can verify whether a drug is counterfeit or the real thing. The Mobile Authentication Service (MAS) allows anyone in Nigeria to check the authenticity of their medicines. How it works: A card attached to each medicine pack…
The number of illegal internet pharmacies selling prescription-only medicines without a prescription is increasing. Large quantities of drugs are dispensed, making drugs of abuse readily available, and further risks are posed by counterfeit medication. Urgent national and international action is required to stop further proliferation of illegal pharmacies. Watching Internet Pharmacies
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has received warning of nearly 12,000 kits of ClindaReach® Pledgets, (Clindamycin Phosphate Topical Solution UPS, 1%), a topical acne treatment, which were stolen from a tractor-trailer on or around February 7, 2010 while in transit. The theft occurred in Monroe, Ohio. According to the manufacturer, Sirius—a wholly owned subsidiary…
If you’re familiar with the Partnership for Safe Medicines (PSM), you’re familiar with our goal: to mitigate the threat of counterfeit and unsafe medicines to patients. The internet and social media have been both a hindrance to our efforts—giving legs to unlicensed online pharmacies, search engine advertising and spam—and a help—providing a tool for outreach…
Nearly four years ago, Americans were warned against buying prescription drugs from Web sites linked to Canada’s biggest mail-order pharmacies, Mediplan Prescription Plus Pharmacy—also known as RxNorth—after laboratory tests of intercepted shipments detected counterfeits. Among the counterfeits were widely prescribed medications for heart disease and cholesterol. At the time, Mediplan’s Founder and President Andrew Strempler…
At the Partnership for Safe Medicines (PSM), we've long cautioned consumers about the dangers of counterfeit drugs—a growing issue affecting all corners of the globe. Now, the Pfizer-commissioned study, "Cracking Counterfeit Europe," has estimated that the counterfeit medicines market in Europe is worth more than $14 billion. The investigation, which covered 14 European countries, comes…
WASHINGTON, DC – Feb. 10, 2010 – The Partnership for Safe Medicines (PSM) today commended Google for its updated policy on U.S. pharmaceutical advertising through its paid search program, AdWords. Toward the end of the month, Google will refine its advertising model to accept ads only from online pharmacies in the U.S. that are accredited…
The U.S. FDA released an updated public health alert regarding counterfeit Alli being sold over the internet. According to the FDA, here’s what you need to know: Alli is an FDA-approved, over-the-counter weight loss drug. FDA lab tests have confirmed that counterfeit versions of the drug do not contain the FDA-approved active ingredient; rather, they…
Who is PharmacyChecker.com? PharmacyChecker is a company that provided online pharmacy certification services for the major search engines until 2010. Why did the search engines stop using PharmacyChecker’s services? None of the search engines gave a public reason for ending their relationship with PharmacyChecker. Several experts in the field, including our own Bryan Liang, criticized…
The Partnership for Safe Medicines (PSM) has long reported on the growing issue of pharmaceutical spam advertising—and now SophosLab Canada has taken a closer look at the solicitation of counterfeit products online.
This is concludes our interview with Garth Bruen, co-founder of KnujOn, an internet compliance company, on the subjects of counterfeit drugs sold online, search engine advertising what’s needed from regulators to protect Web users. PSM: FDA is preparing to receive public remarks regarding the online promotion of medical products and adverse event reporting. What recommendations…
The Partnership for Safe Medicines (PSM) issued the following statement regarding the International Internet Week of Action, code named Operation Pangea II, intended to curb illegal actions involving medical products. PSM is a group of organizations and individuals dedicated to protecting consumers from counterfeit medicines.
This is part four of our interview with Garth Bruen, co-founder of KnujOn, an internet compliance company. We talked to him about the KnujOn system, search engine advertising and what’s needed from regulatory bodies to protect Web users from counterfeit and substandard drug solicitations online. Read: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 PSM:…
This is part three of our interview with Garth Bruen, co-founder of KnujOn, an internet compliance company. We talked to him about the KnujOn system, search engine advertising and what’s needed from regulatory bodies to protect Web users from counterfeit and substandard drug solicitations online. Read: Part 1 | Part 2 PSM: What steps have…
This is part two of an interview with Garth Bruen, the co-founder of KnujOn, an internet compliance company, on the KnujOn system, search engine advertising and what’s needed from regulatory agencies to protect consumers from counterfeit medical products advertised online. Read part one of our interview. PSM: Have you noticed an uptick in the number…
The dangers of online pharmacies and unlicensed drug sellers are well documented. In fact, recent reports released by KnujOn, an internet compliance company, found that 80 to 90 percent of search engine-sponsored advertisements of online drug pharmacies violate federal and state laws, including selling substandard and counterfeit drugs to unsuspecting consumers. To make matters worse,…
As my colleague Thomas Kubic recently noted, most supporters of drug importation have a faulty assumption that developed countries like Canada, Australia, Japan and the 27 members of the European Union (E.U.) are insulated from the global threat of counterfeit drugs. In the coming weeks, we will take a closer look at some of these so-called “safe” countries and illustrate why there is no such thing as a “safe” country when it comes to drug importation.
Earlier this month, a public health campaign was launched in Cambodia to help raise awareness and combat the rising threat of counterfeit drugs throughout Southeast Asia. The campaign, launched by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) Convention with the support of Cambodian authorities, includes a nationally broadcasted public service announcement (PSA) series titled “Pharmacide.”
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Read the TIMES article. Washington-based agency the Pharmaceutical Security Institute, run by Partnership for Safe Medicines board member Thomas Kubic, was created to address the problem of major pharmaceutical companies losing billions every year to counterfeit drug trafficking around the world. Now a group of international dignitaries and industry experts will join this international effort…
FDA is alerting you to a use extreme caution when purchasing any medication over the Internet claiming to prevent or treat H1N1 influenza virus. Several orders of the H1N1 vaccine Tamiflu (oseltamivir) purchased from online pharmacies were found to be a health threat to consumers.
On October 13, a USA Today article featured a report released from the antivirus company McAfee. They found that 70 percent of spam in September was from websites advertizing “Canadian pharmaceuticals.” Further, the only thing that made it “Canadian” was the word Canadian and the maple leaves on the spammers’ web page. The increase in counterfeit drug spam may be due to the rising fears surrounding H1N1 flu, as well as the intensity around the topic of healthcare costs.
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) and United States Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) launched a series of public service announcements on counterfeit medicines in Phnom Penh last week. First broadcast on national television in Cambodia subsequent translations into other languages will help also to spread the word throughout all countries of the Greater Mekong region.…
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On October 12, The Foundation Chirac, a long-time champion of access to safe medicines in African countries, is hosting a meeting in Cotonou, Benin, to discuss the counterfeit drugs that plague African citizens.
The Partnership for Safe Medicines, a group of organizations and individuals dedicated to protecting consumers from counterfeit medicines, issued the following statement regarding recent reports released by LegitScript, an online pharmacy verification service, and KnujOn,an Internet compliance company, which found that 80 to 90 percent of search engine-sponsored advertisements of online drug pharmacies violate federal and state laws, including selling substandard or counterfeit drugs to unsuspecting consumers.
Third incident of stolen asthma inhalers in two months stems from a truck theft on September 8, 2009 in Florida.
Last month, the Wall Street Journal featured an article that discussed the efforts currently underway to deter people from buying counterfeit products. It pointed out that many anti-counterfeiting messages fail to address the underlying motivation which leads people to buy counterfeit products.
An upcoming BBC series entitled "Fake Britain" will demonstrate how easy it is for patients to be tricked by unscrupulous pharmaceutical vendors online. The series, part of the BBC's "Fake Britain" week, focuses on counterfeit products of all types. In the series the chair of the European Alliance for Access to Safe Medicines, Jim Thomson,…
Our recent roundtable discussion post, “Why Steal A Truck Full Of Drugs” generated a lot of attention for this usually obscure policy issue. One reader who is a veteran colleague of drug diversion enforcement, Carlos M. Aquino at PharmaDiversion, LLC, wrote: I just read, “Why Steal a Truck Full of Drugs?” and I have to…
View larger map What: Counterfeit heparin has been linked to the deaths of 81 people and resulted in hundreds of allergic reactions in the United States. Batches of contaminated heparin were also detected in 11 other countries – resulting in as many as 68 more deaths. Reports issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration…