Powered by Blogger.

rss

van

Friday 13 April 2012

Counterfeit drugs ‘a serious threat’

 

An expert has warned that rampant drug counterfeiting may not only lead to financial losses to producers but also give rise to drug-resistant diseases. Widyaretna Buenastuti, chairwoman of the Indonesian Anti-Counterfeiting Society (MIAP), said on Tuesday that consumer education remains the best way to combat drug counterfeiting, to ensure safe drugs were being distributed. “We won’t be able to distinguish whether a product is counterfeit or not. Counterfeiters are really good at coming up with convincing looks for their products,” Widyaretna said in a seminar organized by the US Embassy in Jakarta. She suggested that people only buy medicine from reputable pharmacies or licensed drugstores. Counterfeit drugs have caused serious losses to the government, Widyaretna said, with the amount of potential tax revenue lost reaching Rp 43.2 trillion (US$4.76 billion) between 2005 and 2010. Widyaretna also said counterfeit drugs could be harmful to patients. “If you compare it with other sectors, the economic losses from drug counterfeiting makes up only 3.5 percent of the total figure in the past five years, which is not too high. The problem is that counterfeit drugs can be dangerous and can even kill you, no matter how small the percentage is,” she said. Meanwhile. US Ambassador to Indonesia Scot Marciel said that more than $75 billion worth of fake drugs were sold globally in 2010. He said the latest estimates suggested over 30 percent of medicine sold in Southeast Asia was counterfeit, resulting in serious problems. “The US and Indonesian companies that are making real medicines lose out to people who are making fake or counterfeit medicines,” Marciel said. He said counterfeit drugs could also have severe health impacts. “If they are taking medicines for their illnesses, diseases, and those medicines are fake or not the proper medicines, then there are huge chances that they won’t be cured.” For certain diseases, taking improper medication can contribute to the development of strains of the diseases resistant to regular drugs. In the US, the problem has also affected companies producing drugs for serious illness. Recently, authorities found fake Avastin, a cancer drug produced by Roche, in the market, as well as fake antibiotics, HIV and tuberculosis drugs. But combating counterfeit drugs is not an easy undertaking. Peter N. Fowler, the US regional intellectual property attaché, said most countries, including Indonesia, had regulations against counterfeiting that impose a range of penalties. But in reality, he said, many law-enforcement agencies did not take counterfeiting seriously. “Some still see this naively as consumer choice, saying that ‘Well, you can pay less for this and you take the risk. But it’s not really a threat to society, to the public, in the same way other crimes are’,” Fowler said. Fowler said that the judiciary has also been lax against counterfeiters. “They may get three to six months in jail, they may get fine that they can easily pay because again, the profit from the activity as a criminal business enterprise is huge,” said Fowler. He said some criminals would not be bothered by a six-month jail sentence and would return to counterfeiting upon release. Fowler said counterfeiting drugs is a profitable business, with the profit margin for Viagra could be 2,800 percent of costs, compared to counterfeit tobacco (800 percent), heroin (1,200 percent) and cocaine (1,400 percent). “In Asia, the risk of smuggling narcotics is the death penalty. If you’re just involved in counterfeit medicine, it’s sometimes seen only as trademark violation — although this is a very significant public-health threat,” Fowler said.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

van

Pageviews from the past week

van

Drug Enforcement automatically monitors news articles and blog posts tracking breaking news of arrests and drug incidents as they happen worldwide .These inter-active News Reports are followed as they develop. Giving you the chance to comment on breaking stories as they happen. Drug Enforcement alerts you to topics that are frequently linked to and commented upon in the world press. Someone is arrested every 20 seconds for a drug related offense !Readers are solely responsible for the content of the comments they post here. Comments are subject to the Blogspots terms and conditions of use and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or approval of the Drug Enforcement site. Readers whose comments violate the terms of use may have their comments removed or all of their content blocked from viewing by other users without notification.

Popular Posts

Latest Templates

FEEDJIT Live Traffic Map

Friend's Link

 

Privacy Policy (site specific)

Privacy Policy (site specific)
Privacy Policy :This blog may from time to time collect names and/or details of website visitors. This may include the mailing list, blog comments sections and in various sections of the Connected Internet site.These details will not be passed onto any other third party or other organisation unless we are required to by government or other law enforcement authority.If you contribute content, such as discussion comments, to the site, your contribution may be publicly displayed including personally identifiable information.Subscribers to the mailing list can unsubscribe at any time by writing to info (at) copsandbloggers@googlemail.com. This site links to independently run web sites outside of this domain. We take no responsibility for the privacy practices or content of such web sites.This site uses cookies to save login details and to collect statistical information about the numbers of visitors to the site.We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and would like to know your options in relation to·not having this information used by these companies, click hereThis site is suitable for all ages, but not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 years old.This policy will be updated from time to time. If we make significant changes to this policy after that time a notice will be posted on the main pages of the website.

Latest News

Add to Technorati Favorites
Site Specific Privacy Policy run in accordance with http://www.google.com/privacy.html
We can be reached via e-mail at
copsandbloggers@googlemail.com
For each visitor to our Web page, our Web server automatically recognizes information of your browser, IP address, City/State/Country.
We collect only the domain name, but not the e-mail address of visitors to our Web page, the e-mail addresses of those who communicate with us via e-mail.
The information we collect is used for internal review and is then discarded, used to improve the content of our Web page, used to customize the content and/or layout of our page for each individual visitor.
With respect to cookies: We use cookies to store visitors preferences, record user-specific information on what pages users access or visit, customize Web page content based on visitors' browser type or other information that the visitor sends.
With respect to Ad Servers: To try and bring you offers that are of interest to you, we have relationships with other companies like Google (www.google.com/adsense) that we allow to place ads on our Web pages. As a result of your visit to our site, ad server companies may collect information such as your domain type, your IP address and clickstream information. For further information, consult the privacy policy of:
http://www.google.com/privacy.html
copsandbloggers@googlemail.com
If you feel that this site is not following its stated information policy, you may contact us at the above email address.