Archive for November 2005

Dr. Dora Akunyili and her family were driving down a rural road in Nigeria three years ago when snipers opened fire on her car. "The back windscreen was shattered," she says. "A bullet pierced through my head scarf and grazed my scalp." Akunyili had been targeted by a drug gang–but not the kind that sells…

In Europe, profiteers masquerading as pharmacists are selling unsafe, unregulated, mislabeled, repackaged, and commingled drugs to unsuspecting consumers, through a process known as parallel trade, or reimportation. By Peter Pitts November 1, 2005 Read the full story at heartland.org.

Laid out on a conference room table at Novartis's headquarters in Basel, Switzerland, is a pile of pills. Pills to treat asthma, erectile dysfunction and diarrhea spill out of boxes labeled with well-known names of over-the-counter, prescription and generic drugs from around the world. The kinds of medicines people take every day to cure their…