Just Say No to Fake Drugs
Last Updated: July 22, 2008: 2:07 pm http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic
Tag : Pharmaceutical Ingredient
Between November and February, 95 Americans died after experiencingan allergic reaction to heparin, the FDA has reported. Theblood-thinning medication contained an active pharmaceuticalingredient from China that the FDA suggests was likely to have been"intentionally contaminated."
And for each American death from tainted drugs, there are thousandsof similar tragic stories around the globe. The World Health Organization estimates that up to one-third of all medicines in poor countriescontain too little or no active ingredients to work properly. Inthe 1995 Niger meningitis epidemic, 50,000 people were inoculatedwith fake vaccines -- and 2,500 died. In 2006, more than 100Panamanian children died after ingesting cough syrup that had beenmixed with diethylene glycol, a common component of antifreeze.About 200,000 people die every year from malaria, the WHOestimates, because of poorly produced and inadequately delivereddrugs. Because it is difficult to identify deaths from counterfeitdrugs -- did the patient die because he succumbed to the disease orbecause the drug failed to work? -- many more wrongful deaths goundetected.
Criminals counterfeit drugs because of the tremendous gainsavailable at comparatively low risk. Fake ingredients are oftensignificantly cheaper than authentic chemicals; in the heparinincident, the substituted ingredient, oversulfated chondroitinsulfate, cost $9 per pound. Authentic heparin goes for $900 perpound.
Between November and February, 95 Americans died after experiencingan allergic reaction to heparin, the FDA has reported. Theblood-thinning medication contained an active pharmaceuticalingredient from China that the FDA suggests was likely to have been"intentionally contaminated."
And for each American death from tainted drugs, there are thousandsof similar tragic stories around the globe. The World Health Organization estimates that up to one-third of all medicines in poor countriescontain too little or no active ingredients to work properly. Inthe 1995 Niger meningitis epidemic, 50,000 people were inoculatedwith fake vaccines -- and 2,500 died. In 2006, more than 100Panamanian children died after ingesting cough syrup that had beenmixed with diethylene glycol, a common component of antifreeze.About 200,000 people die every year from malaria, the WHOestimates, because of poorly produced and inadequately delivereddrugs. Because it is difficult to identify deaths from counterfeitdrugs -- did the patient die because he succumbed to the disease orbecause the drug failed to work? -- many more wrongful deaths goundetected.
Criminals counterfeit drugs because of the tremendous gainsavailable at comparatively low risk. Fake ingredients are oftensignificantly cheaper than authentic chemicals; in the heparinincident, the substituted ingredient, oversulfated chondroitinsulfate, cost $9 per pound. Authentic heparin goes for $900 perpound.
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