Counterfeit Medicines, from Headache Pills to Cancer Drugs, have Become a $200-Billion Problem

Jonathon Gatehouse · CBC News 

Tonnes of counterfeit and illegal medicine are seen after a 2015 seizure in Dakar. A similar week-long, Interpol-coordinated blitz last fall saw authorities in 116 countries seize 500 tonnes of fake pharmaceuticals worth an estimated $14 million US. (Seyllou/AFP/Getty Images)

The World Health Organization is warning cancer patients in North America and Europe about a batch of fake drugs that contain nothing but a common painkiller.

The product alert, released earlier this month, says that counterfeit medicine packaged to look like the cancer drug Iclusig, known generically as ponatinib — a targeted therapy for chronic myeloid and acute lymphoblastic leukaemia — simply contains acetaminophen.

The fakes, first discovered by a Swiss wholesaler, have also been detected in Turkey and Argentina. They were being sold online at a fraction of the more than $16,000 US that American pharmacies currently charge for a one-month supply of the drug.

Of course, if Big Pharma didn't charge such extraordinary prices, there would be less incentive for counterfeiting. 

Counterfeit or substandard pharmaceuticals are a big business,

worth an estimated $200 billion US a year.

In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, where the bulk of the fakes are sold, the WHO estimates that as many as 116,000 people die due to ineffective malaria medication each year. It adds that the counterfeits are adding hundreds of millions to health care costs, due to the treatment and hospitalization of people who might not have otherwise been infected.

So this counterfeiting is really a form of massacring hundreds of thousands of people and causing unnecessary suffering for many millions more. 

Bottles of counterfeit Viagra, confiscated by U.S. Customs and Border Protections. Counterfeit or substandard pharmaceuticals are a big business, worth an estimated $200 billion US a year worldwide. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters)

A week-long, Interpol-coordinated blitz last fall saw authorities in 116 countries seize 500 tonnes of fake pharmaceuticals worth an estimated $14 million US. The haul included anti-inflammatory medication, birth control pills, and counterfeit treatments for HIV, Parkinson's and diabetes. (Investigators also found more than 110,000 fake medical devices like hearing aids, contact lens and syringes.) The seizures resulted in 859 arrests and the closure of 3,671 weblinks.

In recent years, Health Canada has been waging a battle against counterfeit Viagra, Cialis and Levitra — sometimes containing too little of the active ingredient, and sometimes too much. All of it widely available online at a steep discount from the $15 per prescription pill.

I was in Algodonez, Mexico several years ago when I entered a pharmacy type store to pick up some ointment my daughter had asked for. As I was about to pay, the guy behind the counter, without explanation, threw a bag of pills on the counter. It was an unmarked, clear, plastic bag with several dozen pills. He wanted about $30 US, if I remember correctly. My two friends broke out laughing as I slowly realized what I was being offered. I simply said, "I'm not there yet!" and left. God only knows what was really in those pills.

Authorities in Scotland and Northern Ireland are currently dealing with a spate of overdose deaths linked to fake Valium and Xanax. The pills, which are being pressed in the U.K. from materials made in Far East drug labs, differ dramatically in strength with every batch, and sometimes contain entirely differently sedatives than the brand names.

No one is quite sure how to best tackle the global fake drug crisis.

Workers pile 50 tonnes of fake medicine for incineration after it was confiscated in Abidjan in 2017. Several nations

around the world are turning to tracking systems to help buyers and sellers determine whether medicine is genuine.

(Sia Kambou/AFP/Getty Images)

West African nations are talking about creating their own pharmaceutical firms to try ensure that quality products make it to local markets. Kenyan authorities plan to roll out a system of country-specific codes that pharmacists and consumers can track via a smartphone app, ensuring that they are selling and buying real, government-approved medicine.  

Some believe that blockchain systems might provide the answer, documenting every step of a drug's journey from manufacturer to consumer.

Although it's unclear if any technology will ever be able to trump politics.

This past weekend, the European Union finally debuted its own continent-wide system to fight and track fake drugs, which has been more than four years in the making.

But the U.K. will no longer have access come March 30, if it fails to reach a Brexit divorce agreement. Almost three-quarters of the prescription drugs used by the National Health Service (Britain) are made in Europe.

The Interpol blitz happened just last October so it is too early to know the consequences to be suffered by those arrested. They must be treated as nothing short of mass murderers as should all criminals who cut their street drugs with fentanyl.