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Beware of Chinese Drugs
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6718645.stm
Trans-national ethnic Chinese gangs are behind the growing trade in counterfeit anti-malarial drugs in South East Asia, the BBC has been told.
John Newton, a senior investigator with Interpol, said counterfeits are now starting to appear in Africa too.
He said the gangs involved organised criminals working across national boundaries and faking the drugs on an industrial scale.
He described them as businessmen with a sophisticated network of conspirators.
In some cases, fake drugs operations are run alongside trade in fake credit cards, weapons and narcotics, he said.
Sophisticated fakes
The gangs are close-knit and hard to penetrate.
"The common denominator is that they are ethnic Chinese," said Mr Newton, a senior investigator and specialist in counterfeiting with the international police force.
"By that, what I mean is that they may be Malaysians, they may be from the People's Republic of China or Myanmar, the former Burma.
"Because they know each other, they're very difficult to infiltrate. They have established networks in the various countries. They're able to exchange and distribute the product. And that makes it very difficult for us to counter," he said.
The fakes are increasingly sophisticated. That, plus the scale of production, suggests a large investment by the criminals.
International health officials warn that anti-malarial drugs are just the tip of the iceberg. There is also growing concern about fake antibiotics and fake anti-retrovirals used to treat HIV/Aids, and even fake versions of the drugs used to treat avian flu.
The profits are huge.
The UN said that within a few years, global sales of fake drugs could be worth $75bn a year.
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Kanaka, you are no kanaka. I couldn't believe it, I've been reading one article after another on Scape this morning about poor quality products from China that are even poisonous and now I come to this one on Health Board and read that the medicines too are a scam in many cases. It is a real eye opener to actually read of specific examples. Normally we only have an attitude that Chinese products are bad but don't know the specifics.
Thanks to all who took the time and effort to find the articles and post them for all of us to learn from. You leaped above the majority on Scape who make no effort at all to find new knowledge and bring it to our attention.
Thank you so much!!!!
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You're welcome...I enjoy surfing the net to find anything that's relevant to PNG.
BTW...I believe many people still have the colonial definition of the word Kanaka. I use the pseudonym Kanaka because it originally means "native" or or in tokpisin "asples". It has been erroneously used by many to relate to people who are unknowledgable. I am proud to use "Kanaka" as I am a native of PNG and proud to be one. Not a "ka-man" or settler.
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The New York Times and the Washington Post each lead with reports on flaws in the Food and Drug Administration's scrutiny of foreign drug manufacturers. The Los Angeles Times leads with the battle over insurance claims by civilian contractors who return from Iraq and claim to be afflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder.
The WP reports that a growing number of medicines, particularly generic drugs and over-the-counter remedies, are made in factories in China and India. While the FDA does inspect foreign plants that ship drugs to the U.S., it lacks the resources to do so with the consistency it polices domestic facilities. The FDA performed more than 1,200 such inspections in the U.S. last year, compared with only about 200 abroad.
The NYT's drug story seeks to make the problem of unregulated foreign medical manufacturing less abstract. Their piece focuses on two incidents in which Chinese counterfeit drug ingredients killed dozens of people: one in Haiti in 1996 and one last year in Panama.
In both cases, the FDA tried to determine the source of the chemicals, hoping to prevent further poisonings and in each case the agency was stymied by an ambiguous supply chain, poor record keeping, and unhelpful Chinese officials. The paper concludes that no agency has the authority to police the pharmaceutical industry at every stop in the supply chain, leaving makers of tainted or counterfeit components to continue operating with impunity.
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