FDA Alert: Medprep Consulting Inc. Announces Voluntary Nationwide Recall Of All Lots Of All Compounded Products Due To Potential Mold Contamination

This is a reprint of an FDA Alert Recall — Firm Press Release FDA posts press releases and other notices of recalls and market withdrawals from the firms involved as a service to consumers, the media, and other interested parties. FDA does not endorse either the product or the company.  Contact Consumer: 732-493-3390 Media: Angelo…

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4 Welsh Residents Sentenced in UK Counterfeit Drugs Case

View larger map In the United Kingdom, three men and one woman in southeastern Wales have been sentenced in a counterfeit drugs case involving a fake online pharmacy based in Pakistan. Andrew Luxton was sentenced to one year in jail. Samantha Steed was sentenced to 12 months in jail, suspended for 18 months. Carl Willis…

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Billing Insurance Companies for Imported Drugs Is a Crime

Billing Insurance Companies for Imported Drugs is a Crime In November 2012, Tennessee oncologist William Kincaid pled guilty to purchasing cancer drugs from unauthorized distributors who were hawking counterfeit drugs with no active ingredient.  Dr. Kincaid deprived his patients of needed cancer treatments and endangered their lives, but–as with Al Capone–the Federal government’s case against him…

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Founder of Montana Healthcare Solutions Pleads Guilty in Counterfeit Cancer Drug Case

View larger map On March 21, 2013, Paul Bottomley, a citizen of the United Kingdom, signed a plea agreement acknowledging his guilt in distributing counterfeit versions of the cancer drug Avastin in the United States. He admitted that the business he founded, Montana Healthcare Solutions, played a significant role in distributing the counterfeit cancer medication…

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$3.6 Million of Fake Drugs Seized in South Carolina Warehouse

Special agents with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations (ICE-HIS) seized approximately $ 4 million worth of counterfeit goods and pharmaceuticals in South Carolina.

The seizure was the result of an investigation that began February 19th. Investigators from ICE-HSI, the South Carolina Secretary of State’s Office, Blazer Investigations and Pfizer found a stockpile of counterfeit goods in a warehouse in Columbia. The bulk of the seized counterfeit items were counterfeit pharmaceuticals, according to the ICE.

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FDA Uses Portable Rapid Testing Devices to Insure Patient Safety

The FDA has released photographs of a portable XRF analyzer designed to screen dietary supplements for toxic metals. The device is one of a new generation of portable screening tools, which will allow investigators to discover and seize adulterated drugs before they are available to consumers. The FDA’s new efforts rely on spectroscopic technologies that “analyze the dispersion of an object’s light determine the object’s chemical or molecular composition.”

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Mexican Senate Increases Penalties for Medicine Counterfeiters

The Mexican Senate voted on March 12 to increase penalties to counterfeit drug sellers to nine years in prison and fines of up to 3 million pesos.

The Senate approved an amendment to article 464 of The General Health Law to increase penalties with 90 votes in favor.  Senate Health Committee President Maki Esther Ortiz Dominguez said, “Anyone who sells or offers for sale, trades, distributes or transports medicine, drugs, raw materials that are falsified, altered, contaminated or adulterated, either in stores or in any other place….will be subject to the same penalty,” reported The News.

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Chambliss W. G, Carroll W. A, Kennedy D, Shepherd M*, et al. Role of the Pharmacist in Preventing Distribution of Counterfeit Medications. In: J Am Pharm Assoc. 2012;52(2):195-199.

Abstract Objective: To provide an overview of the counterfeit medication problem and recommendations of a joint American Pharmacists Association (APhA) Academy of Pharmaceutical Research and Science and APhA Academy of Pharmacy Practice and Management taskforce. Date sources: SciFinder and PubMed were searched from 1980 to March 2011 using the following keywords: counterfeit drug product, counterfeit…

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