Counterfeit Underworld

There have been blogs recently that talk about the dangers of buying drugs online as they could be illegal and potentially harmful medicines. At first it seems like a good idea to buy drugs online as they are often cheaper and easier to get a hold of but in reality, they have come from extremely dangerous sources.

 

Drug companies have legal departments that will cover every angle and every aspect of their products to prevent them from being reproduced illegally. They spend vast amounts of money on protecting their medicines with water-tight patents and by incorporating special holographic logos on packaging. It seems that they have thought of everything since it would be easy to spot a fake and reprimand its distributor. However, there are rogue companies abroad, outside of the UK’s jurisdiction, which are getting away with making counterfeit drugs that can actually find their way into our community pharmacies.

 

Alongside the legal team there will be a fierce group of undercover investigators who will need to identify the counterfeiters, infiltrate their organisation and shut them down. Yes, it does sound like I am being over dramatic but this really does happen! The most disturbing thing about counterfeit drug companies is that the facilities they have to make their drugs are horrifically unsanitary as they do not comply with any sort of clinical standards. 

 

Some counterfeit products are so well made that it is virtually impossible to distinguish them from genuine ones. There is a lot of money to be made in this criminal industry that targets vulnerable people. 

 

Counterfeit medicine is problematic for obvious reasons: if people don’t realise what they are taking is illegitimate the result could vary from no therapeutic effect to death. If people report adverse reactions from drugs (that have not been discovered as counterfeits) it can have damaging effects on the reputation of the pharmaceutical company that the drugs are associated with. If you are interested to know more on this, there is a website www.securingpharma.com that contains recent news on counterfeits and what is being done to stop this.