OpSec Blog

There’s been plenty of outrage recently over the unexplained rise in cost of Mylan’s EpiPen injector. Just last week Mylan’s CEO, Heather Bresch, attempted to defend in Congress the drug’s nearly 600% price increase over the past ten years. This price surge has left many people with life-threatening allergies that depend on this medicine to search for other alternatives such as generic versions, coupon offers, or discounted online sales.

Drug pricing is one of the main reasons consumers head to online pharmacies in search of cheaper options. By the same token, the price of authentic medicines is what drives counterfeiters to manufacture fake, substandard product and offer it for sale virtually anonymously online.

An Ohio man was recently charged with distributing counterfeit drugs he had obtained from China and India. 

Tamacio Walls was caught selling a number of erectile dysfunction pills he had acquired through unauthorized means, and as a result, could end up serving hard time. The boxes containing the shipments of illicit medications were mislabeled.

Do you have a few wrinkles that you'd like to get rid of? Well, according to a recent Food and Drug Administration warning, if you decide on getting Botox you could have problems worse than crow's feet. 

The FDA recently warned doctors that a counterfeit make of the drug popularly used to clear wrinkles from people's faces has made its way into the U.S.

Canada has seen a number of deaths connected to counterfeit medications recently, and authorities there think they may have discovered another case. 

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police suspect that a sudden death in North Battleford may have been caused by counterfeit oxycontin. A number of recent deaths in the country have been attributed to fake replications of the pain-killer, but this is believed to be the first in the Saskatchewan town.

Counterfeit Cialis and questions of counterfeit drugs

In light of the recent announcement by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that counterfeit versions of the drug Cialis were found in the mail en route to a U.S. customer, we thought it would be a good time to go over some basic facts about prescription drug counterfeiting in America.

As the old adage says, “politics makes strange bedfellows”.  None stranger perhaps than last June when the state of Maine opened the door to well-funded and well-organized international criminals by legalizing online drug purchases from internet pharmacies by its citizens.  The intention of the law is to allow Maine’s inhabitants access to cheaper drugs abroad than are available here in the US.   Whatever the rationale, the predictable consequence of the law is to fully open the doors of commerce in Maine to online providers of counterfeit and substandard medicines.  Other states are watching the Maine model and may well follow suit, with potentially disastrous consequences for their citizens.