The $75 billion counterfeit drug market has rivaled that of legitimate pharmaceutical sales for years and regulators are struggling to keep up with crooks peddling their fake wares online.
Pick any blockbuster drug – Vicodin, Viagra, Xanax, you name it – and chances are it's been imitated and passed off to unwitting consumers all over the world.
This excerpt from a recent DOJ blog post shows just how troubling the trend has become:
"These counterfeit drugs ... aren’t made in quality-controlled laboratories, but in hidden rooms with unsanitary conditions. In order to replicate the look of legitimate drugs, they bear shockingly sophisticated labels and packaging, down to the serial numbers on blister packs and holograms."
Last year, Canadian-born Hazim Gaber was sentenced to 33 months in prison for passing off pills filled with starch, dextrin and lactose as the highly popular cancer drug DCA.
But that's child's play compared to what fraudsters pack into fake drugs like knock-off Viagra. They use commercial-grade paint to mimic the erectile dysfunction drug's trademark blue color and then pack the pills with toxins like boric acid, speed, and even rat poison.
Other commonly found ingredients include highway paint, floor wax, boric acid, and the DOJ claims consumers have reported buying ‘Xanax’ pills filled with a substance used to manufacture sheetrock.
In 2006, A woman died from cardiac arrhythmia caused after popping fake pills she bought online that turned out to contain metal poisoning. You can tell from these images of fraudulent Vicodin just how difficult it might be to spot fakes:
How to spot the fakes
In fact, more than half of drugs sold online are completely counterfeit, according to the World Health Organization.
Per the DOJ: Before you purchase any medicines online, make sure the site (1) requires a prescription; (2) provides its name and address; and (3) has a licensed pharmacist you can actually speak to. Gaber sent his fake DCA pills to customers with a bogus certificate of authenticity inside.
The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy keeps detailed lists of online sites that sell legitimate pharmaceuticals.
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