PSM in the news
Summer 2024
"In the best-case scenario, consumers just lose their money. In the worse scenario, you end up with medications that are potentially harmful."
- Shabbir Safdar, quoted in "Nearly half of online pharmacies selling weight loss drugs are operating illegally, study finds," Liz Szabo, NBC News, August 2024
"Any counterfeit medication can be dangerous, but fake Ozempic poses a particularly high risk because it is injected. It’s extremely tricky to manufacture sterile injectable drugs."
- Shabbir Safdar, quoted in "Are you sure your Ozempic is real? Fakes are on the rise," Dani Blum, The New York Times, July 2024
"The second problem we're seeing is poorly compounded medications distributed through incredibly unsafe sources like Etsy, of all places...and who knows what in them. It's very dangerous to inject yourself with them."
- Shabbir Safdar, quoted in "Warnings grow about counterfeit weight loss drugs," Bill O'Neil, WXII 12, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, July 2024
"If you see fake Ozempic now you see it online. Always walk into a real bricks and mortar pharmacy to be as safe as possible."
- Shabbir Safdar, quoted in "Fake weight-loss drugs surge online," Fox 13 Seattle, July 2024
"The FDA has said they have had several reports of medical adverse events from people who have taken compounded versions of these medications."
- Shabbir Safdar, quoted in "Discussing the growing threat of fake diet medicines on Coast Live," WTKR Hampton Roads, VA, July 2024
""Despite regulatory safeguards, the U.S. has seen an alarming growth in fake medications."
"The danger of counterfeit therapeutics is still not considered a public health crisis. Doctors are woefully misinformed about the safety of the drug supply."
- Shabbir Safdar, quoted in "Fake drugs, real dangers," Kellie Schmitt, Hopkins Bloomberg Public Health Magazine, Spring/Summer 2024