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Fake vials of surgical anesthetics have been found in the marketplace in Birtangar, Nepal, after a patient awoke mid-gallstone surgery. A patient awoke during a gallstone removal procedure in a private hospital in Biratngar, five minutes after being administered with the anesthetic, Vacuron. Doctors notified authorities who found fake vials of the anesthetic in the Biratnagar market, reports My Republica.…
Read MoreAbstract According to the World Health Organisation, counterfeit medicines are medicines that are mislabelled deliberately and fraudulently regarding their identity and/or source. All kinds of medicines have been counterfeited, both branded and generic ones. Counterfeit medicines may include products containing correct or wrong ingredients; without active or with insufficiently or over-active ingredients, or with fake packaging. Many sources of information…
Read MoreNAFDAC officials were surrounded and threatened by drug traders while raiding a pharmaceutical marketplace with a masked informant in Nigeria. Three suspected fake medicine sellers were apprehended by authorities with their wares by the National Agency for Food, Drug Administration Control (NAFDAC) however the majority of suspects had emptied their shops prior to the raid, limiting the usefulness of the…
Read MoreAn Uxbridge resident has pleaded guilty to selling counterfeit medicine online from a repair garage in northwest London. Saranjit Bhambra admitted to operating a website, www.keepithard.co.uk, that sold prescription erectile dysfunction medication without a prescription. He pleaded guilty on April 26, 2011, to one offense of selling medicinal products that contain ingredients found in medicines that can only be supplied…
Read MorePolice in China’s Zhejiang Province arrested more than 200 suspects on May 25, 2011, for allegedly manufacturing and selling fake medicine and health care products. Over 1,000 police officers from the Jinhua Public Security Department raided 41 locations and arrested in total 263 people, mostly originally from Loudi, in Hunan Province, reported the China Business News. Police seized fake drugs,…
Read MoreFederal authorities arrested a Detroit resident on May 26, 2011, for running a counterfeit medicine ring. Gene Hardwick, 49, allegedly bought hundreds of fake erectile dysfunction pills online for 50 cents apiece and then sold them locally for $3- $4 each, netting roughly $800 a month, reports the Detroit Free Press. Federal authorities were alerted to his business in January…
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The death of a London paramedic has been ruled accidental after she ingested a fatal dose of pills purchased from a foreign online pharmacy.
Lorna Lambden, 27, a paramedic and Masters Degree student at the University of Hertfordshire, was found dead in her home on December 17, 2010, after ingesting pills purchased over the internet without a prescription, reports the Daily Mail.
The coroner, Edward Thomas, found a fatal level of the drug amitriptyline in her blood. Thomas added that the medication had not been prescribed to Lambden, but suspected she purchased an equivalent called “amitrip” from a foreign internet-based pharmacy.
Said Thomas, “…four milligrams [worth of amitriptyline were] found in her blood, and a therapeutic level is about one milligram.” He went on to say that after taking the drug she collapsed and suffered a cardiac arrhythmia, reports the St. Albans Review.
Lambden’s family knew that she had trouble sleeping and suspect she purchased the medication to rest between twelve hour shifts with the London Ambulance Service, reports the London Metro.
Lambden’s mother, a retired accident and emergency sister, said: “It’s terrible that these drugs are so freely available online and people can buy them without seeing any warnings about the harm they can do.”
Coroner Thomas said: “Amitriptyline can stop the heart and I think that is likely here. Lorna would not have known it had happened. It would not have been like a heart attack.”
Image from the Lorna Lambden Memorial Facebook page.
Read MoreA Miami facialist has been arrested by police for allegedly perfoming unlicensed facial injections of counterfeit Botox that severely injured two people. Diana Marcela Cardenas-Gonzalez, 28, was charged on Tuesday, May 24th, of practicing medicine without a license, and practicing health care without a license causing injuries, reports NBC Miami. On September 26, 2010, in Miami, two patients received supposed…
Read MoreUS FDA alerted US consumers to sibutramine containing diet capsules in early May, and now those same capsules have been found for sale in Israel, according to the Israeli Health Ministry’s Pharmaceutical Crime Unit. The drug was withdrawn from the US market due to safety reasons in October 2010, and has sent a “large number” of people to hospitals, according…
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