A Scary Tale on Halloween

A front-page article in today's (10/31/07) New York Times exposed the scary reality about pharmaceutical ingredients exported from China: these ingredients "are often made by chemical companies that are neither certified nor inspected by Chinese drug regulators."

The frightful story doesn't end there.

The potentially harmful ingredients were being openly peddled by Chinese chemical companies at a major pharmaceutical convention this month in Milan, Italy. According to the New York Times' investigation, one third of the over 1,300 companies exhibiting at the convention were from China. Of these, several companies had been involved in recent government investigations and have a history of selling fake and, in some cases, lethal drugs. One scheduled company wasn't there -- it's owner is currently in a Houston jail after trying to sell drugs to customs agents (he was successful in getting his drugs into the European market).

The lack of regulation in China means that these chemical companies don't have to meet any drug-manufacturing standards and are easily able to export unapproved and counterfeit ingredients.

And now for the part that's really alarming:

"The substandard formulations made from those ingredients often end up in pharmacies in developing countries and for sale on the Internet, where more Americans are turning for cheap medicine," according to the Times. And unfortunately, the Times also reports that the FDA simply cannot inspect even a small fraction of the 700 or more Chinese manufacturers that may be sending drugs to the United States.

The Times' front page exposé is another chilling example of how more and more unsafe Chinese chemicals are finding their way into drug ingredients that make up the medicines bought by unsuspecting consumers. Unfortunately, consumers are buying these drugs from illegitimate sources, including many online sellers posing as Canadian pharmacies.

Kudos to the New York Times and its reporters for its great work revealing the extent to which counterfeit drugs are a serious patient safety problem that U.S. health experts believe "pose a greater threat to a broader segment of the American public," especially those buying their drugs on the Internet.

Click here to read the full investigative piece.

Click here to help protect yourself and your family by signing up for the SafeMeds email alerts of government counterfeit drug warnings.