Dangers Of Counterfeit Pharmaceutical Drugs

Critics have pointed a finger at the unethical use of intellectual property in the pharmaceutical industry claiming it is being used to set prices far above what those in third world countries can afford. Given that a good number of the raw material came from these regions, it is unethical to use intellectual property

In Dana Thomas’s essay “Terror Purse Strings”, Thomas is trying to bring awareness to companies that produce counterfeit items and persuade her audience of all people, but particularly younger women, not to purchase them. In order to make her essay easy to read, Thomas includes certain strategies to catch the eyes of her audience. The strategy that she uses best is statistics. An example of a good statistic in her essay is when she tells the reader that “at least 11 percent of the world’s clothing is fake, according to 2000 figures from the Global Anti-Counterfeiting Group in Paris” (103). Thomas includes a

For several industries in Asia, in particular pharmaceuticals, security issues include fake branded products and the substitution of goods with counterfeit or inferior quality replacements. Recent supply chain security initiatives are also designed to address security problems relating to the sale of counterfeit goods. In August of 2008, Hong Kong customs discovered 2.5m cigarettes in a container that was marked to contain other goods. If these items had not been identified as fake, they could have been sold as original brand goods, resulting in a substantial shortfall in excise income for the Hong Kong Government.

The pharmaceutical drug business is simply that: a business. Most of what goes on within these massive companies is purely to make a profit off of people’s purchases of the drugs they produce and sell. Angell titles her first chapter “The $200 Billion Colossus” referring to the drug business and the amount of money that it generates. That amount of money is not even fathomable to the average person because of how large of a number 200 billion is. The fact that there is an industry that generates so much revenue year

After watching the video, I have realized that intellectual rights protection is based on the foundation of R&D investment, which are also the building blocks of the pharmaceutical industry. There is adequate evidence to proof that intellectual rights in the form of trademarks and patents are very significant in the pharmaceutical industry as is compared to any other industry. This may be caused by the fact that copyrights on prescription drugs are a better effective measure for increasing the limitation costs than copyrights on other commodities. The value of copyright protection relies on the duration of exclusivity. Although the lifespan of copyrights is predetermined by international treaty at 20 years from the filing of the copyright application, the actual period between gaining market approval and patenting, the significance of the copyright is much less than 20 years.

During the 1970s, a drug U-47700 was created by researchers as an anesthetic, less addictive than a morphine substitute. U-47700 was eventually tossed out and discontinued. The Food and Drug Administration did not approve it for human use. Unfortunately, the patent, which included instructions on how to produce the drug, became public information (Mato, 2016). This resulted in foreign drug manufactures gaining access to the formula through academic journals and patent filings (Blau, 2016). Currently, dealers from out of the country are using the chemical recipe and selling the drug in the United States, (Mato, 2016).

Lockhart, K. (2016, November 25). The UK's online counterfeit economy - by numbers. Retrieved 27 November, 2016, from The Telegraph:

Compounding is an important facet of pharmaceutics that allows the formulation of specific drugs for individual patients. The work done at compounding pharmacies permits the development of medicinal products for patients that cannot tolerate certain components from mass production pharmaceutical companies. These individuals may require uniquely compounded agents to be flavorless, preservative-free, dye-free, liquid, solid, or more. These specialty production facilities are necessary for therapy and an acceptable quality of life for individuals with specific needs. Recently, the patient-driven role of designer therapeutics that compounding pharmacies occupy was overshadowed when a manmade epidemic was produced a medical catastrophe when supposedly sterile materials were contaminated with infectious agents.1

The methodology of the first article outlines differences peer and parent influence on prescription misuse as it correlates to ethnicity. Critical research based on this article by Conn and Marks focuses specifically on results of the study which concludes the support of its findings. Based on the results obtained in 2010, from adolescences aged from 12-17 years old. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). The perception was studied as a potential mediator of the effects of parent and peer disapproval. Additionally, participants completed computer based methods and along with in person interviews about their recreational medication use, other substance use, and correlates of use. Path analyses showed that predictors of prescription

An example would be when people mix alcohol and Valium. This combination could stop breathing altogether.

Drug counterfeiting is a critical issue confronting the global pharmaceutical industry, health providers, patients, and governments worldwide. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a counterfeit medicine is one that is "deliberately and fraudulently mislabeled with respect to identity and/or source. Counterfeiting can apply to both branded and generic products and counterfeit medicines may include products with the correct ingredients but fake packaging, with the wrong ingredients, without active ingredients or with insufficient active ingredients."(Enyinda and Szmerekovsky, 2008; Qu, 2010).

From the beginning of time we have these pre-conceived notions that doctors are a secure haven. The relation between the drugs and the dealer greatly resemble the relation between pharmaceuticals and physicians. Society views the doctors as the problem, but if you dig deeper, you’ll notice that it relies on the pharmaceutical industries. The FDA approves these drugs that could benefit you in one aspect, but it can also wreak havoc on the potential consumers. Although, pharmaceutical drugs aren’t always defective, they allow the pain to subside, even if the relief is temporary. The drugs that are prescribed are not curing disease, but merely concealing the symptoms.

Have you ever paused and discovered that it’s so easy to get lost in the counterfeit? ...or realized that we live in a world where the counterfeit seems more real than the real?

Pharmaceutical Sciences is a topic that has interested me for a while now. What I can say about this topic is that it will help humanity grow as a whole and keep everyone moving forward. This is a topic where people really need to think about what goes behind the scenes of your average pharmacies. Once people start to think about it, they would start to realize that the science that happens is extremely crucial to mankind as we know it. Without this kind of science, where would humans be today? Would we have the ability to evolve the way we have? How far would humans make it to creating today’s future as we know it? The simple answer to all these questions is

Another important feature of the pharmaceutical industry was the fact in that in many countries it was