Illegal Pill Presses Pose Serious, Nationwide Threat to American Patients and Communities

cover 2021 update on pill presses

The Partnership for Safe Medicines and the National Association of Drug Diversion Investigators have released an update to 2019’s Illegal Pill Presses: An Overlooked Threat to American Patients.

Since the initial report, fentanyl deaths are higher than ever and these pills – created by clandestine pill presses around the globe – continue to be sold on the streets and on the dark web.

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Are safety-tested imported drugs still cheaper? No. They are more expensive.

Testing medicine for legitimacy is a complicated process. Across 24 different prescription medicines, the average cost to test a single dose is $2,750. However, ensuring that a batch of 100 pills is 90% certain to be safe requires testing at least 22 pills. Achieving 99.999% certainty requires even more testing, at tremendous expense. Once you’ve done the required testing, U.S. generics are cheaper. To learn more about this topic, read PSM’s summary: safedr.ug/Acri-Explained.

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Criminal Internet Pharmacy Networks Are Capitalizing on COVID-19.

In May 2020, the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) released Rogue Online Pharmacies in the Time of Pandemic: Capitalizing on Misinformation and Fear, which focuses on how established fake pharmacy networks have pivoted to cash in on the coronavirus. PSM’s illustrated version of the report offers a compact summary of NABP’s work. Watch…

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How Many Tests Need to Be Performed to Know That a Batch of Pills is Safe?

Testing medicine for legitimacy is a complicated process. Across 24 different prescription medicines, the average cost to test a single dose is $2,750. However, ensuring that a batch of 100 pills is 90% certain to be safe requires testing at least 22 pills. Achieving 99.999% certainty requires even more testing, at tremendous expense. To learn more about this topic, read PSM’s summary: safedr.ug/Acri-Explained.

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HHS comments come in overwhelmingly against Canadian drug importation proposal

Yesterday ended a 78-day comment period for the White House’s proposal to import medicine from Canada. In all, over 1,000 comments were filed. Overwhelmingly, these comments opposed the proposed rule or expressed skepticism that the rule could meet the two requirements listed in the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003: be safe and save consumers money. In fact, when you read the comments, it is clear that this policy is overwhelming opposed by experts on the issues of economics and medicine safety.

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