Medication Bottles: [Painting Tic-Tacs half blue to look like pills and medication capsules.]

Caption: Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals!

Should you be worried that your Pharmaceuticals are counterfeit? Are your SSRI’s…”SSR-NOTS”?!  The FDA has seen an increase of medication fakes hitting our shores lately.  While most are not psychotropics or common meds for Bipolar, Depression or Anxiety, it does make one wonder and worry (a cause for real concern.)

A worthy topic for discussion: Do you know, for sure, the pills you swallow are not sugar pills? Or worse…a watered-down, weaker version of much-needed medication?!

“WAIT”– you say, “getting us worried about ‘fake drugs’ is just BIG PHARMA’S way of bullying us into buying their particular product.”  I think there may be some truth to that statement, however, there is legitimate weight to counterfeit pharmaceuticals being out there doing more damage than good.  I don’t agree with what I read that Big Pharma  is categorizing/labeling “safe” generic/cheaper medication as “fake drugs” as a way to corner the market.  What do you consider counterfeit pharmaceuticals? Would it include my cartoon depiction of painted Tic-Tacs looking like medication pills?  After all, that is how I think of the term “counterfeit pharmaceuticals” or “Fake Drugs.”

What are we truly talking about?  This safety topic could fall into the following 3 categories:

• Substandard Pharmaceuticals  “do not meet quality standards specifications for the product as defined under World Health Organization guidelines.”  They may have deconstructed a brand name to make a generic knock-off with some of the ingredients either being off or missing.  Or they may be old, weak, ineffective and dangerous.

• Factitious Pharmaceuticals are identified as “FAKE DRUGS” with product misrepresented in an insidious way to scam the consumer.  This happens by falsified documentations and claims, I.E. Take “Cure-It-Tol” and it will cure all Depression and Bipolar Disorder.

• Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals are outright criminal trademark infringement aimed to defraud Big Pharma.  Producing  generic, but selling as the brand name product.

Do you “really” need to personally worry about Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals? YES and NO. The main issues/concerns are seemingly mostly affecting people outside of America. Here in the States, are the odds in your favor that you may never have to deal with “Fake Drugs” labeled as real drugs?  Sadly, it’s a REAL, major problem in poorer countries! Just because I am not personally affected at the moment, should I be apathetic toward those who are?  OxFam writer, Jennifer Brandt, puts it like this:

Poor-quality, or ‘substandard’, medicines threaten patients and public health in developing countries. Prioritization of medicines regulation by developing-country governments, with the technical and financial support of rich countries, is badly needed. Under the guise of helping to address dangerous and ineffective medicines, rich countries are pushing for new intellectual-property rules and reliance on police – rather than health regulatory – action. This approach will not ensure that medicines consistently meet quality standards. Worse, new intellectual property rules can undermine access to affordable generic medicines and damage public health. Developing countries must improve medicines regulation – not expand intellectual-property enforcement – in order to ensure medicine quality.  – Eye on the ball medicine regulation (pdf)

@chatobstewart

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From Psych Central's website:
FDA Warns Of Counterfeit Drug | Mental Health Humor (February 15, 2012)

    Last reviewed: 20 Jan 2012