U.S. Agents Search Mail for Counterfeit Drugs

On May 13, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) led a foreign mail inspection in West Miami-Dade, Fla., designed to weed out thousands of counterfeit and unapproved medicines and stop them from entering the country. The three-day search had agents poring over packages of illegal pharmaceutical drugs, dietary supplements and home remedies mailed from…

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Anti-counterfeiting Initiative: Promoting the Quality of Medicines

As incidents and awareness surrounding illicit and counterfeit drugs grows, so too do the programs and technologies to combat them. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be examining just that: anti-counterfeit technologies and the programs designed to support them. While there’s no silver bullet technology or program to mitigate the global threat of counterfeit drugs,…

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Philadelphia Resident Admits Selling Over-The-Counter Counterfeit Drugs Containing Carcinogenic Solvents

View larger map A Philadelphia resident pleaded guilty to an 18 count indictment for the illegal importation and distribution of four million fake diet pills that contained unapproved drugs and carcinogens.  The pills "caused significant side effects in some individuals, including nausea, vomiting, elevated blood pressure, heart attacks, and strokes." Who: Food and Drug Administration…

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Gaudiano MC, Di Maggio A, Antoniella E, Valvo L, Bertocchi P, Manna L, Bartolomei M, Alimonti S, Rodomonte AL. An LC method for the simultaneous screening of some common counterfeit and sub-standard antibiotics Validation and uncertainty estimation. J Pha

"For export only" anti-inflammatory and lightening creams are medicinal products sold in African countries for their skin whitening action. In the last years, Rapid Alerts from European Medicinal Regulatory Agencies evidenced the presence of a large number of illegal and counterfeit anti-inflammatory products advertised for their whitening action on black skin in the European market.…

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Rogue Pharmacy Using Social Media

Earlier today, the Guardian’s Technology Blog posted a malware roundup to alert readers of scams and spam making their way around the Internet. Disturbingly, author Chris Arthur found that a known rogue pharmacy has set up shop on Twitter. The Official Canadian Pharmacy at Canadian-Drugshop.com uses the Twitter handle @canadianshop to boldly display its offerings,…

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PSM’s Inaugural 2010 Interchange

Join global experts to discuss key issues around the problem of counterfeit drugs and the ways to promote access to safe medicines   Friday, October 8 National Press Club Washington, D.C. 8:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.   The Partnership for Safe Medicines (PSM) invites you to save the date for an intimate conference bringing together…

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Martino R, Malet-Martino M, Gilard V, Balayssac S. Counterfeit drugs: analytical techniques for their identification. Anal Bioanal Chem. 2010;398(1):77-92.

In recent years, the number of counterfeit drugs has increased dramatically, including not only "lifestyle" products but also vital medicines. Besides the threat to public health, the financial and reputational damage to pharmaceutical companies is substantial. The lack of robust information on the prevalence of fake drugs is an obstacle in the fight against drug…

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