Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Counterfeit Medications

Counterfeit drugs is one of my greatest concern when I started practising medicine. How can I be sure that the drugs I prescribed is the real stuff and not sugar water?


This is an interesting article from The Scientist that shares my concern.
The article is written by




The Counterfeiter


The story of how one of pharma’s biggest enemies was nabbed in Houston, Texas

Stone / Getty Images

On May 25, 2007, Kevin Xu logged into his Gmail account and found a startling message from a man who could have been his biggest client.

From an office suite on the 28th floor of the Plaza Royale in Beijing, the baby-faced businessman had gone from selling shark cartilage and penicillin to Chinese hospitals and clinics to cashing in on the high-profit margins of the European and—he hoped—US pharmaceutical markets. Xu kept a list of 29 brand-name drugs he could deliver at cut-rate prices, from the baldness remedy Propecia to lifesavers like the antileukemia drug Gleevec. If it wasn’t on the list, Xu boasted that he could find a way to get it.



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