Thousands killed by useless, fake drugs

Thousands of people have unknowingly been killed by pharmaceuticals “they have taken in trust, that contain no active ingredient,” said Peter Lowe, assistant director, International Chambers of Commerce Counterfeiting Intelligence Bureau in the UK. Lowe described this as a destructive trade in which people are being murdered by terrorists who are using fake drugs to fund their activities. “It has sometimes been described as the perfect murder.  The evidence, the packaging, the vial has disappeared, so it is very easy for counterfeiters to get away,” Lowe said yesterday while outlining reasons why there is no war against counterfeit drugs.

He was speaking on the second day of a conference hosted by the Caribbean Industrial Research Institute (CARIRI) on “Pharmaceutical Counterfeiting” at Hilton Trinidad. Counterfeiters are using “quite sophisticated security technologies” on packaging, including hologram simulation to convince buyers that the drug is “the real thing.” However, counterfeit drugs are also produced in the “most appalling unhygienic conditions.” In Colombia, counterfeiters made a concoction using boric acid and yellow highway paint which was put into blister packs to look like the anti-inflammatory drug Ponstan. Early this year, the US Food and Drug Administration and Johnson and Johnson had to issue an advisory after fake contraceptive patches, manufactured in India, entered the US market.

While there are no official statistics available, Lowe told Newsday that conjecture would not be  far from truth given the endemic nature of the problem. Highlighting the insidious side of the problem, he said in developing countries people die from counterfeited pharmaceuticals, but the cause is undetected because autopsies were not done. “The packaging will be gone and their deaths go unnoticed,” he said. Lowe said the exact number of people who die may never be known. There are reported cases. Three thousand people have died in Niger, Africa, from a fake meningitis vaccine. Deaths due to fake cough syrups have also been reported in Nigeria, Bangladesh and Haiti. 

In his presentation, on “Fighting the Problem,” Lowe cited the World Health Organisation estimates that five to eight percent of drugs on the world market are counterfeits. A report in the June 2002 Pharmaceutical Executive put the figure at 40 percent in underdeveloped countries such as Mexico, Argentina and Colombia while it is “widely said” that 70 percent of drugs in West Africa are counterfeits. Lowe said small operators on back streets, legitimate enterprises and organised crime (eg Mafia, Triads) are involved in the counterfeit drug trade. Terrorists are also using counterfeit drugs to fund their activities.