Cancer, obesity, genetics, bird flu, hold your breath ladies and gentlemen, we have a new health concern to unveil! The name of the game is pharmaceuticals, and apparently there is a booming business in faking them. Common especially in Asia, counterfeit drugs are becoming increasingly harder to track and more frequently consumed. The growing trend in internet is leading towards more consumers to purchase false drugs online.
It’s an obvious problem for consumers--who wants to be the poor shmoe with placebo Viagra, much less a flu shot?--as well as pharmaceuticals. Counterfeits are getting incredibly sophisticated, to the point where even experts can't spot a false. Scammers also turn twice the profit as legitimate companies--big surprise seeing as only one product actually has to work--while at the same time giving a bad name to the industry in general.
As an industry, health care is largely based on trust. We take prescription of so-and-so and expect to recover. I'm curious how far these scams reach. Again, while nobody wants to be the forty-year-old man who discovers his Happy Pill are fakes Saturday night, how great are the ultimate ramifications to these false companies? We are increasingly internet dependent for products. This system of purchase--not unlike that of health care--is based almost entirely on trust. How many drugs for cancer and mental health issues ordered in bulk online by doctors? And how many people have died or suffered because their medications can't fight body odor much less leukemia?
As an issue, drugs have mostly been investigated in the sense of a black van scoping out owners of suspiciously bulky trench coats on street corners. In the case of drug counterfeit however, the legal ramifications don't appear to be severe for an industry that could literally cost lives, if not at least take fraud to a new personal low. This seems to be just one more example of courts and police falling behind technology while a load of crooks take advantage of the internet and unsuspecting.
You can see for yourself what I'm talking about and come to your own conclusions. Feel free to drop any comments on the matter: USA Today: Growing problem of fake drugs hurt patients, companies
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