Legislation to fight counterfeit drugs

The issue of counterfeit pharmaceuticals is a growing health crisis in the United States. The victims are often people who need real, quality drugs the most — cancer patients, AIDS patients and people being treated for heart disease.

Until recently, Americans could feel relatively secure that the medicines they purchased at the neighborhood pharmacy or received from their doctors were safe. But there are worrisome signs. In 2003, the Food and Drug Administration announced a recall of some 200,000 bottles of Lipitor — a popular cholesterol-lowering drug — that were believed to be fake. In previous years, 110,000 bottles of counterfeit Epogen and Procrit, drugs used to boost red blood cell production, made their way into the marketplace.

The main reason for the sudden rash of counterfeit drugs, not surprisingly, is money. The worldwide market for counterfeit drugs is projected to grow to $75 billion annually by 2010. Some experts say it is more lucrative to sell a counterfeit drug than a narcotic, and the criminal penalties for counterfeiting drugs are far less than for selling narcotics.

Counterfeiters are alarmingly good at their jobs. They create pills and drug packages that are so close to the real products that they are indistinguishable to consumers. Last year, the news media reported "counterfeits . . . which have been found to be cut with substances including brick dust, chalk, paint and furniture polish . . . are notoriously difficult to detect with the untrained eye and even experts sometimes require full forensic science laboratory tests to determine whether a suspect product has been tampered with."

At America's international mail facilities, approximately 273,000 unapproved pharmaceuticals enter our system every day. They are then shipped to Americans without being tested or screened for safety. With the advent of rogue Internet pharmacies, some of our most vulnerable citizens have become a target for criminals who prey on people desperate to save money on their medicines. Some of these internet pharmacies, posing as legitimate Canadian pharmacies, get the drugs they sell from China or India, where counterfeits are rampant.