In January 2015, George M. Karavetsos was appointed the new head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigations (FDA-OCI). Previous to his appointment as Director of FDA-OCI, Mr. Karavetsos served as the executive assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Assistant General Counsel in the FDA’s Office of the…
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Every healthcare professional who purchases medication is familiar with faxes from persistent direct sales companies that inundate the office with daily price lists. Regardless of the supplier, purchasing or using non-FDA-approved drug products exposes the physician to criminal and civil liability. The medication doesn’t even have to be counterfeit for the physician to suffer legal consequences.
A pharmacist operating an online pharmacy in Washington DC has been indicted on fake online pharmacy charges, according to a press release from the FDA. In addition, a Florida-based doctor, has been charged with fulfilling prescriptions for said pharmacy for over 38,000 U.S. residents. Titilayo (Tomi) Akintomide Akinyoyenu, also known as Tommy Akin, was arrested…
The Canadian Department of Justice, along with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have raided Kris Thorkleson’s Canada Drugs.com headquarters in Manitoba, the CBC reports. Speaking with the National Post, PSM Board member Jim Dahl expressed the opinion that the raids are a direct result of the ongoing investigation of counterfeit Avastin making it’s way…
Samantha Gompel, the Intellectual Property Rights Communications Manager at the World Customs Organization (WCO), described the WCO’s efforts to help its 179 members secure and protect supply chains throughout global trade.
When a drug counterfeiter makes fake medication, they do not go through dosage testing, quality control, or safety testing. The goal is to produce a product that looks like the real thing, with little concern for the actual ingredients. For this reason, all manner of toxic substances have made their way into counterfeit medication.
PSM board member Jim Dahl, the retired Assistant Director of the FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations, spoke on our international panel about the Medicrime Convention, a new cross-European effort to address criminal issues involving medical products.
With the explosive growth of global medication counterfeiting crime rings, it is essential for policy makers across all disciplines to familiarize themselves with the counterfeit drug problem in the United States.
At PSM’s 2014 Interchange Gillian Buckley shared the Institute of Medicine’s Board on Global Health’s recommendations on how to stop the flow of fake medicines by supporting regulatory authorities and drug manufacturers in low to middle income countries.