One in five drugs in India is fake

steven_ber

Massive racket in counterfeit medicine leads to call for death penalty for 'merchants of death'

NEW DELHI - Walk into a chemist anywhere in India and chances are that one out of every five medicines on sale is a fake and even a potential killer.

It is a massive racket that kills an unknown number of people each year and robs legitimate drug companies of almost US$1 billion (S$1.76 billion) annually - which works out to 15 to 20 per cent of the industry's turnover.

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NOTE: I remember reading about this a few yaers ago, seems it's still the same.

kipling

So much for my plan to save $ by buying doxycyline in Delhi!

steven_ber

I'm sure there will be reputable stores in all the major cities that check all their stock is genuine.

Maybe one of our Indian members is aware of such a chain of chemists.

I wonder though, how much of the 'fake' drugs are simply an locally produced generic copy of a recognised international drug.

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Steven

This article has been archived and is now only available to subscribers.

I wanted to have another look at it because I think that the % of drugs quoted as "fakes" seems very high. I would guess the figure quoted also includes a lot of genuine drugs produced without the permission of some of the multi-national pharmaceutical companies but obviously the Indian government, in the case of harmful fakes, has to take action on this.

As I understand it the price of drugs may rise sharply in India shortly as an agreement between local manufacturers and the major drug companies is due to expire soon.

Inity & Iditation

hi, i read the article, and yes the high 'statistic' is made up of patent-infringing pharmaceuticals, rather than sugar pills. However, the article did discuss that an undisclosed amount of these illegal generics had lower amounts of the active ingredient than they stated on the boxes, which was the cause for alarm!

Something you CAN do to be careful in Indian pharmacies is ALWAYS check the expiry dates.... people have tried to sell me expired medicine many times!!!

bijapuri

never ceases to amaze me, when I go in, make a sad face and point to my guts, they give me the magic beans and 24 hours later I'm back to normal!

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IndyBoy

Damn right, I'm sure that Malana cream I bought in Manali was half henna.

aessedai

I have just been watching a show from the BBC about fake drugs around the world, the vast majority of which are produced in India. Very scary stuff. fake insulin, fake pain killers, fake adrelalin etc. People dying all over the place cause the drugs that doctors thought would save them were ineffective or worse, actually hastened their deaths.

The producers of the show went to delhi and were able to purchase fake drugs with absolutely no problem. I guess the point is, that whilst i am sure there are plenty of real drugs out there, there are also plenty of fakes and u may not be getting what you paid for.

The URL for the programme is:

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/conte...5/s1445881.htm

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Rob_The_Pom

When I had a nasty case of E-Coli poisoning in Leh, one of the local shop owners who we'd become friendly with took us to his own local doctor. After being perscribed the relevant drugs we went to the pharmacy next door.
We handed over the perscriptions and the pharmicists reached up onto the shelf to get the relevant drugs. Rafi, our shop owner friend, shouted at him in the vernacular and harranged him until he went to another shelf reached behind the drugs there and brought out our perscription.
When we left the shop I asked Rafi what that was all about.
He said, 'Well, I just wanted to make sure that you got the genuine pills, not the fake ones.'

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aessedai

scary....

wandering_kat

I just had to get a prescription the other day; the doc knew i was staying in Pahar Ganj and said it would be better if i bought the drugs at a pharmacy near her clinic (in Nizamuddin), as they'd be less likely to be fake. So i guess Pahar Ganj is out. (Then again, it's out for most articles if you're after the genuine product!)

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john.sw

This is Big Brother talking about patent-infringing pharmaceuticals.

Governments tell lies, especially when the weight of the massively profitable pharmaceutical companies is bearing down on them.

In the UK, "nice Mr. Blair" (our President) recently warned us that cigarettes that are produced outside the UK contain dangerous levels of cyanide, lead, and other poisons - that was the reason, said Bliar, why we should only buy the home produced cigarettes at Rs.400/- for a packet of 20 instead of the ones you can get in Spain or Italy for Rs.176/- for a packet of 20.

I have been using Indian drugs for years... in fact, the only drugs I have bought in the UK recently were some amoxycillin - made in India and literally 100 times the price of the same thing in India!

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Digital Drifter

Sorry to hijack to a different tangent but have you noted a trend in the papers bashing the NHS.

Granted, it's u'staffed and it's low on critical equipment and there are waiting lists but c'mon it can't be that bad, is it?

Horror stories of people waiting for critical operations or bodies stacked int he morgue are the only ones coming out. But you never hear the good ones being done, have you?

Tie that in with Private medical insurers ads on TV, attacks on 'socialist' Universal healthcare and you have the US scene bearing upon you.

by all means, whinge and complain but don't throw out the one good thing which'll save your life without burning out your life and your nest-egg.

Otherwise, you'll be COP(care-of-platform); Indian slang for homeless on the streets

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lotus blossom

one reason that i stick to the herbals that i but from ayurvedic doctors. but did you know that prescribed medications cause untold deaths in the u.s. every year?

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Nick-H

Indian-made patent-infringing (or not, India has not, until recognised those patents but that is changing) drugs is a different thing. They are not 'fake' medicines and are probably as good as their 'original' counterparts.

The 'fake' medicines are as much good as talcum powder in a capsule, and might well be. It is these counterfeit drugs that cost lives, and there are, apparently a lot of them about.

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