Interesting FACT

The true cost of cheap(ly) made medicines.

Added by Archibald on Jun 12, 2009 | Visited by 6195 | Voted by 50 persons

I have to say that I am not against cheap medicines, affordable to masses, especially for those drugs that are vitally needed to cure AIDS, TB, malaria, STDs and other mass killers. More than that, I presume the cost of those powders - active ingredients, produced in huge quantities is just ridiculous compared to profit markups fixed by leading drugs manufacturers. That is why when negative news appeared about quality standards in new drugs producing countries like Vietnam, Egypt, India, probably most of us thought that this is a part of a monopolistic battle against emerging competitors.

Two things made me change my mind. First, stories of friends and acquaintances, which are heard more and more often, about either poor effect or absence of any effect of drugs, produced cheap by new companies recently unheard of. Secondly, my own bad experience, when in one East European countries I had no choice but to buy and use an antibiotic produced in Egypt (unfortunately it was a few years ago, and I do not remember the name of the producer). It was quite a destructive experience, and one would be happy to have as a result "absence of any effects", because when I realized what has caused my even worse illness, I started to investigate the issue and was shocked to discover that drugs production in emerging countries is poorly regulated and drugs counterfeiting is a multi-billion dollars business, threatening health and lives of millions of people.

Thus, I found out that:

One can buy-in (corrupt) the line manager, so that he puts 70% or 50% or even 30% of active ingredient into the ordered drugs. The saved difference is split. The consequences of such products range from untreated illnesses to increasing resistance to drugs, to deaths.

In absence of proper laboratory analyses, one can produce "ultimate weight loss natural herb" additives or other miraculous products, filling them with chalk, ashes and even dried cow's excrement, or even contaminated poisonous ingredients, like lead containing inks.

If a decade ago a proper packing was a sign and a certain guarantee of proper quality, it is not anymore nowadays. Even if the drugs are in nice modern blisters and beautiful boxes, it is not a guarantee that it is a genuine brand! It can be printed that it has been produced in Germany, UK, Egypt or India, while in reality it could have been produced in some cellars on quite unsophisticated equipment in Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, Romania.

Counterfeiting drugs has also spread to the high value and high demand segments.

Internet is becoming an uncontrolled channel of unregulated poor quality drugs sales.

As a result, you'll be happy to stay alive. For that you should follow my true advice:

Stay healthy. But if you need medicines and can afford to pay a few bucks more for a well known and tested brand - do it. Maybe these few bucks are the additional expenses for a better quality ensuring and supervision, which in the end would save you from troubles and extraordinary expenses.

Stay away from internet drugs. Go to the pharmacies with good reputations. Talk to the pharmacist - he bears moral responsibility.

Check the suspicious producers on Internet. Sometimes you may found direct comments about a certain drug, or indirect signs (For example, a friend of mine was recommended to buy a liver function improvement herbal drug. He couldn't find any mentioning about this medicine anywhere, but a short notice on the site of the producers itself that it is a new product in the test phase! So, he immediately threw out the drug.).

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