Fake drugs: Deathtraps for patients
Taken for a fake ride
On Digital Drugs
Paying for Admitting Patients in a Government Hospital
All pills look real, not because they are, but because they're packed to deceive you. This is the world of counterfeit medicines that are made for the kill.
The International Narcotics Control Board report says that some 25 to 50 per cent of the medicines in developing countries are fakes. Some are being sold over the internet others get through loopholes in the pharmaceuticals industry.
The complete negative effects of fake drugs are yet to be determined. They can cause unexpected side effects, allergic reactions, worsen your medical health and even bring death. The market of fake drugs is increasing rapidly. Estimates of the deaths caused by fakes run from tens of thousands a year to 200,000 or more.
What are fake drugs?
These are medications, which are produced and sold with an intent to deceptively represent their origin, authenticity or effectiveness.
• Drugs expired yet repacked with a new label.
• Drugs in which the ingredients are fraudulently diluted.
• Drugs in which ingredient is adulterated
• Drugs in which ingredient is substituted
• Drugs which are wrongly labeled i.e. wherein the active ingredient is completely misrepresented.
Bogus antibiotics, tuberculosis drugs, AIDS drugs and even meningitis vaccines have also been found. Malaria medicines have been particularly hard hit. In a recent sampling in South-East Asia, 53 per cent of the anti-malarials bought were fakes. China is the source of most of the world's fake drugs. Most counterfeiters make drugs for sale outside the country, so that they are not caught.
How do fake drugs affect drug addicts?
Many narcotic addicts and psychoactive substance abusers are going in for prescription drug abuse. And 'it is likely that the abuse of prescription drugs will soon overtake that of illegal narcotics worldwide'.
The Vienna-based drugs watchdog has said that prescription drug abuse has already outstripped heroin, cocaine and ecstasy in some parts of Europe, Africa and South Asia.
These people are taking in opioid drugs like OxyContin, Codeine, Morphine, Percocet, Vicodin and Dilaudid. Use of syringes to intake these medicines further spreads the AIDS epidemic.
Can Counterfeits make new medicines ineffective?
The latest miracle drug for malaria is artemisinin, it has also been targeted by counterfeits internationally.
The counterfeit is so perfect that it even has small amounts of artemisinin, not enough to cure, but enough to elude even pharmacists. Strains like artemisinin can foster drug-resistant parasites in some cases.
Such resistant strains could spread from person to person by mosquito and ultimately render the drug ineffective, as already happened with Chloroquine and Fansidar, two earlier malaria cures.
Fake antibiotics with a low concentration of the active ingredients can do damage worldwide. Courses of antibiotics that are not seen through to completion allow bacteria to regroup and develop resistance, as it happened in the case of tuberculosis, which became drug resistant.
Drug companies around the world are fearful that their brand will be shunned if news of a fake gets out. Many have been known to dump expensive, outdated drugs into the developing countries. Pharmacology experts estimate that eighty percent of the world's nations lack drug agencies capable of detecting sophisticated counterfeits. Many internet pharmacies do not require a prescription to send out controlled drugs. Counterfeiting of medicines is a huge lucrative business due to high demand and low production costs.
This post is not meant to damage public confidence in medicines. However, medicines need to be safe, effective and of good quality in order to produce the desired effect. The mortality and morbidity arising from the fake drug trade are considerable.
Developing nations need to put in place competent national drug regulatory authorities with the necessary human and other resources to control the manufacture, importation, distribution and sale of medicines.
