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View larger map Mahomed Bacai, a Portuguese national living in the United Kingdom, was sentenced to 44 months in prison for running an illegal mail order drug business out of his home. The investigation conducted by the Medicine Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA) resulted in the seizure of approximately £1.6 million worth of unlicensed, prescription-only-medicines and dangerous pharmaceuticals. Bacai pleaded guilty…
Read MoreOn February 13, 2013, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released
their report, “Countering the Problem of Falsified and Substandard Drugs” that
reviews the current state of substandard and falsified drugs globally, and offers
a series of recommendations to combat drug falsification and to encourage
global cooperation on drug safety.
Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Margaret
Hamburg commends the FDA commissioned report because it “spotlights a critical global public health
issue. Falsified and substandard medicines adversely affect the lives of
millions around the world, and the issue must be elevated to the highest levels
of international discourse.”
On February 15, 2013 at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi, the Partnership for Safe Medicines India proposed an initiative “to study the extent of spurious and not-of-standard medicines in India and adopt policies to ensure safety and quality in the supply chain.”
An unprecedented pilot program supported by the PSM India will provide low-cost medicine evaluation for patients at accredited government approved laboratories. The goal of the pilot program is to “establish trust on the quality and existing regulatory standards between the manufacturers and the consumers,” said P. D. Sheth, VP, International Pharmaceutical Federation.
Read MoreShri Keshav Desiraju, Secretary, Health and Family Welfare, Govt. of India delivering Inaugural Address at the Open House Consultation on Accessibility to Safe and Quality Medicines in the Supply Chain in India in New Delhi February 15, 2013.
Read MoreView in larger map Abdul Latif Fneish, the brother of Lebanese Minister of State for Administrative Affairs, Mohammad Fneish, has had an arrest warrant issued against him in Lebanon as a result of his links to counterfeit drug importation. In November 2012, Abdul Latif was linked via media reports to the forging of laboratory test certificates on illegally imported drugs.…
Read MoreBreaking News: US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has identified a third batch of counterfeit cancer medication in the United States. On February 5, 2013, the FDA posted a health practitioner warning about this latest counterfeit version of the cancer treatment Avastin.
According to the FDA “lab tests have confirmed that at least one batch of a counterfeit version of Roche’s Altuzan distributed in the United States contains no active ingredient.” The counterfeit drugs allegedly have been distributed by New York-based supplier, Medical Device King/Pharmalogical, reports the FDA warning. This is the first time a US drug supplier has been implicated in the distribution of counterfeit cancer drugs.
7,224 hospitalizations for laboratory-confirmed flu cases have occurred in the United States since October 1, 2012, according to the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Weekly Flu Update. Additionally, a January 25th CDC news release reports that influenza infection rates have been running at least 2 percentage points above epidemic classification for the past three weeks. While the CDC and other public health entities are encouraging consumers to be vaccinated, drug counterfeiters look at the US flu epidemic as a cash-making opportunity, warns the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The FDA’s February 1 consumer update warns “As the flu continues to make people sick—and even cause deaths—scammers are alive and well, promoting their fraudulent products to the unsuspecting public.”
Read MoreThis is a reprint of an FDA Alert. Purchasing Unapproved Drugs is Risky Business [2/5/2013] The Food and Drug Administration is committed to protecting the supply chain against counterfeit and unapproved medicines that enter the United States through fraudulent sources. As part of this vigilance, FDA is alerting health care professionals that an unapproved cancer medicine distributed by a U.S.…
Read MoreView in larger map 7 people in China have been sentenced up to 11 years in jail for producing chromium-laced gel medicine capsules. The case first came to light in April 2012 , when Chinese authorities arrested 72 people for producing drug capsules produced from industrial grade gelatin rendered from leather processing. Who: Chinese State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA).…
Read MoreView larger map A third instance of a counterfeit version of the cancer therapy drug Avastin, labeled Altuzan (as it is labeled in Turkey) has been found in the United States, announced the FDA. The FDA has conducted tests on samples of the drug and found them to be counterfeit. Medical practices obtained the counterfeit Altuzan through sources in the…
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