CNBC recently ran a piece about counterfeit products in the marketplace highlighting the growing problem of counterfeit medicines. While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recognizes that counterfeits threaten the safe drug supply in the United States (see the FDA’s Counterfeit Medicine web page), the problem is even more acute outside the U.S. and other countries where medications are highly regulated. International travelers need to be more and more vigilant about how they purchase medicine abroad.
The World Health Organization has addressed this global issue by the formation in 2006 of a global taskforce called IMPACT (International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Taskforce). As IMPACT’s web site points out, “Counterfeiting is greatest in regions where regulatory and enforcement systems for medicines are weakest.” Specifically, most industrialized countries are relatively safe, but the risks are greater “in many African countries, and in parts of Asia, Latin America, and countries in transition.” Of course, counterfeits are well represented among medicines ordered over the Internet. Many online sources (this seems fairly obvious to me) are not playing by all the rules and are more likely to be selling fakes.
The counterfeiters seem to be medication agnostic. Nothing is safe. If you have to get new medicine while away from home, it makes sense to go to a trusted pharmacy or doctor. An international medical assistance company may be able to help you. HTH Worldwide (which sponsors this blog) equips its customers with the names of carefully selected doctors and notable pharmacies in hundreds of destinations around the world. No matter how you make your purchase, inspect the packaging carefully. Unfortunately, counterfeiters have become extremely sophisticated; most of the time, a visual inspection will only detect an obvious problem. In response, the drug industry is working on anti-counterfeit measures employing high technology. New Scientist magazine has detailed some of the countermeasures that are being developed to fight fake drugs (subscription required to see the whole article). The time is coming when each pill can be tracked and validated by the consumer prior to use.
We’ve all encountered knockoffs from gregarious sidewalk vendors hawking convincing copies. (Quick aside: I once had a potentially embarrassing conversation with a street vendor of handbags in New York City. He was from Senegal, and I asked him if he lived near Dhaka. World capitals gone awry – Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh! He heard “Dakar” and thought I really knew my way around West Africa). Counterfeit handbags may pose some risks (not colorfast?), but nothing like taking, literally, a poison pill. Make sure the medicine you are taking comes from a trusted source.
