The Food and Drug Administration announced the unsealing of an indictment on March 25, 2011, after the arrest of two Americans charged with manufacturing and selling fake medication in New Jersey. Brian Parker, 27, and Michelle Pfeiffer, 24, of Brielle and Toms River, NJ, respectively, were charged with conspiracy to misbrand drugs, impeding the lawful…
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Two more conspirators were sentenced after pleading guilty to conspiring to unlawfully distribute human growth hormone and anabolic steroids through an online pharmacy on April 20th, 2011 in Miami, Florida.
William L. Dailey, 72, of Boca Raton, Florida and James M. D’Amico, 58, a former licensed dentist from Cape Coral, Florida worked for Powermedica, Inc., a pharmacy in Deerfield Beach, Florida, and were sentenced in March and April 2011, after their co-conspirators, Daniel L. Dailey, the CEO, and Manuel Sanguily, a prescribing physician, were sentenced last year, announced Wifredo A. Ferrer, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and David W. Bourne, Special Agent in Charge, FDA.
Powermedica sold hGH and anabolic steroids to customers nationwide. Doctors involved with the illegal online pharmacy would merely rubber stamp the orders for the drugs without examining the patients or even reviewing their medical histories.
Defendant Daniel L. Dailey was the Chief Executive Officer of Powermedica and his father, William L. Dailey, was Powermedica’s president and Chief Operating Officer. Manuel Sanguily and James M. D’Amico signed the drug orders that purported to be “prescriptions” for the dispensing of the hGH and anabolic steroids to Powermedica’s nationwide clientele.
The defendants all admitted that they knew that the hGH and anabolic steroids Powermedica distributed were being used for performance enhancement and admitted that they knew that Powermedica’s sales staff, who were not medically trained, were deciding in consultation with the customers which drugs the customers were to receive. In addition, they all admitted that the licensed practitioners, such as Sanguily and D’Amico, were simply signing the prepared drugs orders without meeting with, talking to, or physically examining the customers, and without reviewing the customer’s medical history record or blood test results, announced Ferrer and Bourne.
April 25, 2011 – Cleveland, Ohio prosecutors have charged four people in a forty count indictment for allegedly conducting a major prescription drug diversion ring, dealing millions in painkillers. Cuyahoga County prosecutors said that drugs were obtained with the help of a pharmacy insider and then sold on the street. Ebonie Hubbard, a pharmacy technician…
Read MoreLife-threatening counterfeit diabetes test strips were discovered in India, five years after similar fakes were discovered in the U.S. Officials believe the fakes were manufactured in China and packaged with false labeling in India for intranational distribution. Johnson & Johnson spokesman David Detmers told the Wall Street Journal that they believe the fake strips were…
Read MoreThirteen suspects were charged by the Luwan District Prosecutors’ Office of manufacturing and selling a fake cancer drug that caused eye infections in 61 people in Shanghai on April 26, 2011. 116 patients of Shanghai No. 1 People’s Hospital were prescribed Avastin, a cancer drug also used to treat macular degeneration in September 2010. Of…
Read MoreIndian police busted a fake medicine packing unit in Patna, India on April 22, 2011. Police led a team to a house owned by Vidyanand Thakur in Nagwan village and seized fake medication in powder form, wrappers, a punching machine and medicine filled in bottles, reports The Times of India. The Superintendent of Police said…
Read MoreEarly warning signs suggest spread of an artemisinin-resistant strain of malaria to the Thai-Myanmar border. Charles Delacollette, coordinator of the WHO’s Bangkok-based Mekong Malaria Programme, said, “what we are seeing along the Thai-Myanmar border seems equally serious … to what we had at the Thai-Cambodian one,” reports IRIN, the news service of the UN Office…
Read MoreTanzania is receiving a new mobile phone SMS message system to monitor the supply of regulated malaria drugs, announced Roll Back Malaria on April 22, 2011. Roll Back Malaria is a partnership with the Tanzanian Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Novartis, Vodacom and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. The nationwide program comes…
Read MoreThe Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria have discovered that millions of dollars of donated malaria drugs have been stolen since 2009, vastly exceeding the suspected levels of theft.
The Global Fund developed a new anti-corruption program after exposed grant fraud prompted donors to demand greater transparency, reports the Associated Press.
Officials identified thirteen countries, mostly in Africa, where the drugs have gone missing from government supplies and have been resold, possibly tampered with or improperly stored, on the black market.
“Heat, high humidity and exposure to sunshine can cause accelerated decomposition of the stolen product,” says Dr. Marv Shepherd, Director of the Center for Pharmacoeconomic Studies at University of Texas-Austin’s College of Pharmacy. When these products are re-sold on the black market, they could be ineffectve at treating malaria and contribute to the growing resistance problem.
Global Fund spokesman Jon Liden said that $2.5 milion worth of malaria drugs are suspected of being stolen from Toga, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Swaziland and Cambodia, adding, “We take this very seriously and we will do what it takes to protect our investment.”
Western Cambodia is undergoing an outbreak of artemisinin resistant malaria, the first known worldwide, caused, in part, by poor malarial treatments. The treatments are poor due to improper drug treatment regiments, or because medications purchased for these regiments may have been diluted or stored improperly and therefore weakened. Additionally, counterfeit pills with limited or no effectiveness may have been repackaged in the legitimate medicine packaging.
Tom Kubic, President and CEO of the Pharmaceutical Security Institute is concerned. “Theft of this magnitude of life saving medication is a very serious global health concern. Every time medication leaves the legitimate supply chain it is vulnerable to tampering, including dilution of injectable drugs. Additionally, there have been incidents were counterfeit medicines were found in genuine, reused packaging. Gravely ill patients are at risk of receiving ineffective treatment and again, the most needy suffer.”
Read MoreOn April 15, 2011, Kurt Walter Donsbach, 75, of San Diego, was sentenced to a year in county jail and probation of ten years after pleading guilty in December to 13 felony charges including unlawfully selling fake drugs to cancer patients, practicing medicine without a license and attempted grand theft.
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