Illegal medicines, a growing problem

What are illegal medicines?

Medicines are regulated products, requiring authorisation before being made available on the market. They are manufactured to high standards set down by national and international regulators. Illegal medicines can be counterfeit or fake.

Counterfeit and Falsified Medicines: What's the Difference?

Producers of counterfeits try to make their products look exactly like the authentic version. However, because they enter the supply chain illegally you can't be sure where or how they were manufactured. As a result, these drugs are most often falsified.

 

Falsified (fake) medicines are a significant health risk mainly for two reasons:

  • they don't contain the active ingredient that is needed to make the medicine work, or contain a wrong dose of it;
  • the substances that have been used to bulk up the product can be harmful, or even fatal.

 

Falsified Medicines: A Deadly Choice

In 2012, American cancer patients got some troubling news: some doses of the cancer medicine that they had been given turned out to be fake. While there was nothing harmful in the medicine itself, there was also none of the active ingredient. This drug — which doctors had sourced from an online supplier — is used to treat cancers of the brain, colon, kidneys and lungs. Those patients who were given the fake version of that drug missed vital doses in their cancer treatment and it is impossible to say how many lives were shortened as a result. 

Despite the best efforts of the US FDA, the fake drug surfaced once again in 2013 through an online retailer. It is all too easy for fake medicines to enter the supply chain via unregulated, online retailers.

To prevent it happening in the EU, the EU has launched a new initiative: a logo for legally-operating EU-based online pharmacies. When you buy medicine through a registered online pharmacy or retailer you can be sure that the product you are buying is of the highest quality as every link in the supply chain is well controlled.

 

Falsified Medicines: A Growing Trend (Infographic)

The infographic will communicate the statistics from Interpol's Operation Pangea — an annual week of action against the unregulated sale of medicine. http://www.interpol.int/Crime-areas/Pharmaceutical-crime/Operations/Operation-Pangea

June 2013: 99 countries, 10.1 million illicit and counterfeit pills confiscated;

October 2012: 100 countries, 3.75 million illicit and counterfeit pills confiscated;

September 2011: 81 countries, 2.4 million illicit and counterfeit pills confiscated.

 

 

Last updated on 16/12/2020