St. Lucia—Investigating fake medicines has its glamorous side. For every investigation I’ve done in the dangerous and dingy back alley of Lagos, Luanda, or Lubumbashi there are far prettier and less lethal locations, such as the one I find myself in today. Increasing numbers of islands in the Caribbean have been used as transit points for websites selling unregistered drugs, some of which are fake and could be lethal to patients. Such fake Web sellers are a menace and it’s good the government tries to protect U.S. citizens from them. It is also helpful when independent organizations write about the fake drug trade and expose its dangers.
For example, Len Maniace has a well written and largely correct article for Consumer Reports today.
I was interviewed by Maniace for this article in March this year, and although he doesn’t quote me for the piece, he cites my study in a Public Library of Science peer-reviewed journal (incidentally, this is the only peer-reviewed study he quotes). His interpretation of that study is accurate, as far as it goes. But it misleads the reader by not explaining the main conclusion of the study. My research team concluded that if one bought from foreign online sellers credentialed by independent group www.pharmacychecker.com, there was no more demonstrated risk than buying from sites approved in the United States by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. But to mention this would undermine the message Maniace and Consumer Reports were making in the rest of the article.
I have no objection to a robust debate about the dangers inherent in buying drugs from foreign websites, but I do object to misleading readers into thinking that all foreign pharmacies and foreign drugs might be lethal. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is not the only competent regulatory agency in the world and Pfizer and AstraZeneca (the two manufacturers whose products we tested) do not produce worse versions of their medications for Europeans or Canadians as compared with what we might buy in the United States.
Searching out lethal sellers from China to the Caribbean is important, but misleading impoverished Americans into believing foreign means lethal is unacceptable.
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It’s noteworthy to add that as recently as December 2008 Consumer Reports recommended that Americans check drug prices of U.S. and foreign online pharmacies on PharmacyChecker.com. I believe they have removed this reporting from the Consumer Reports website but it can be found in a discussion about saving money on health care in the Los Angeles Times – http://articles.latimes.com/2008/dec/29/health/he-costshow29/2 – “Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs advises checking online prices, for U.S. and foreign pharmacies, at pharmacychecker.com. ”
Roger Bate’s conclusions about online pharmacies are based on empirical data, his expertise in counterfeit drugs and common sense. We are pretty certain that Consumer Reports is just accepting what they are told by groups that are aligned with and funded by the pharmaceutical industry. Why?
Gabriel Levitt
Vice President
PharmacyChecker.com