August 5, 2020 video: Behind the Scam: Uplabeling

August 5, 2020

This week’s video goes “behind the scam” to show you “Uplabeling,” which is a technique that counterfeit criminals have used in the past to make major profits. In uplabeling, counterfeiters took a low-dose medical product and made it look like a more expensive, high-dose version of the same drug simply by changing the label.

Read More
Jar of radish paste

Counterfeit Medicine News for the Week of July 27, 2020

August 3, 2020

In PSM’s round-up this week: Continuing COVID-19 fraud, counterfeit Botox, and ongoing counterfeit pill news.

Read More

July 29, 2020 video: Importation Executive Order Explainer

July 29, 2020

On July 24, 2020, the White House issued an executive order to implement three approaches to foreign drug importation, all of which involve dipping into other countries’ drug supplies and putting them in U.S. medicine cabinets. Watch this week’s video to learn more.

Read More

Citizens Against Government Waste Warns Drug Importation Executive Orders Will Cost Patients in More Ways Than One

July 28, 2020

In this July 28, 2020 editorial published in the WasteWatcher blog, Elizabeth Wright argues that the administration’s Executive Order will “encourage more illegal behavior and a greater production of counterfeit drugs from countries like China, Mexico, and India.” Wright is the Director of Health and Public Policy for Citizens Against Government Waste

Read More

FDA Alert: Food and Drug Administration Issues a More Serious Warning About Methanol in Hand Sanitizers

July 27, 2020

The FDA has issued a second, more serious warning about hand sanitizers that have been made with deadly methanol. Their first warning came on July 2, when they warned they had “seen a sharp increase in hand sanitizer products that are labeled to contain ethanol (also known as ethyl alcohol) but that have tested positive for methanol contamination.”

Read More
Top view of coffee cans in a box

Counterfeit Medicine News for the Week of July 20, 2020

July 27, 2020

In PSM’s round-up this week: PSM’s statement about drug importation, The Safeguarding Therapeutics Act, continuing COVID-19 fraud, and ongoing counterfeit pill news.

Read More

Statement on Trump Administration Executive Order on Drug Importation

July 24, 2020

Washington, D.C. (July 24, 2020) – Shabbir Safdar, executive director of the Partnership for Safe Medicines, released the following statement in response to President Trump’s executive order signed today on the importation of prescription drugs:

Read More

Ukrainian Pair Pleads Guilty to Importing and Selling Fake Cancer and Hepatitis C Drugs

July 22, 2020

A pair of men from Ukraine admitted in federal court that they conspired to smuggle and distribute counterfeit cancer and hepatitis C drugs into the United States. Maksym Nienadov, the owner of the Ukrainian-based company Healthy Nation, and his co-conspirator and employee – Volodymyr Nikolaienko – pleaded guilty in federal court in Houston, Texas to conspiracy, trafficking in counterfeit drugs and smuggling goods into the country.

Read More

4 Deaths and 26 Hospitalizations in Arizona Caused by Fake Hand Sanitizer Made with Methanol

July 21, 2020

The FDA has issued 70 recalls/warnings at last count for hand sanitizers made with deadly wood alcohol (methanol). Substantial methanol exposure can result in nausea, vomiting, headache, blurred vision, permanent blindness, seizures, coma, permanent damage to the nervous system or death.

Read More
Screenshot of ICE headline

Counterfeit Medicine News for the Week of July 13, 2020

July 20, 2020

PSM’s round-up this week includes fake PPE and COVID-19 treatments, deaths and hospitalizations related to hand sanitizer made of methanol, fentanyl pill seizures, and guilty pleas from two Ukrainian men who sold counterfeit cancer and hepatitis treatments to U.S. agents.

Read More