Archive for February 2011

Sixty one patients who suffered complications due to the use of counterfeit cancer drugs, have been identified as plaintiffs in a Shanghai fake drug case, implicating 18 possible defendants. On February 2, 2011, the People’s Republic of China Shanghai Information Office announced that 116 patients, prescribed Avastin, a cancer drug also used to treat macular…

The Argentinian Federal Police’s Technical Criminal Investigation division conducted 11 raids in the ongoing counterfeit medicine mafia investigation, including a large raid at the Posadas Hospital, in the greater Buenos Aires district of Haedo. Six people were arrested. Among those arrested were a former policeman linked to trafficking in ephedrine, while all have been implicated…

On January 29, 2011, two Chinese nationals pled guilty to trafficking in over-the-counter weight-loss medications, including manufacture and distribution, in the United States, announced the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office (ICE), culminating a two year undercover investigation.

According to court documents, between December 2008 and March 2009, the FDA issued a series of alerts concerning tainted weight loss pills and counterfeit versions of the brand-name drug “Alli,” a popular over-the-counter weight-loss drug, indicating that these fake drugs were also being imported into the United States from China and that they did not contain the proper active pharmaceutical ingredient for the authentic product, but instead contained dangerous levels of Sibutramine. The counterfeit versions of Alli were being sold in the United States, among other ways, through internet websites, including online auction websites such as eBay. The FDA stated in these initial alerts that the items posed a very serious health risk to consumers, because, based on analysis, they were found to be drugs that contained undeclared active pharmaceutical ingredients, including Sibutramine (a non-narcotic controlled substance), reports the ICE.