Fake Viagra, and more, in Bangkok

“You see counterfeits coming out of Pakistan, India, China but you can have local production in any country,” said Chris Raymond, a Southeast Asia project coordinator for U.S. Pharmacopeia, a non-profit that monitors drug quality.

“It doesn’t take a huge operation,” he says. “You could do it in an apartment easily.”

Among the biggest threats from bogus medicine is its potential to fortify viruses and create drug-resistant strains of malaria, tuberculosis or other infectious diseases. This happens when shoddy vaccines lack enough active ingredient to kill off all the pathogens in a person’s body.

Only the most potent germs remain — and become extremely difficult to treat. Experts believe underground malaria meds have helped give rise to particularly vicious malaria strains around the Thai-Cambodia border.

The war against fake meds is partially backed with U.S. tax money. Since 2003, U.S. Pharmacopeia has maintained about 45 “sentinel” sites to vet out counterfeit drugs throughout Southeast Asia, work that relies on $25 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The sites, which use secret shoppers and field kits, are focused on drugs that treat malaria, tuberculosis and other fatal diseases. Though Viagra is one of the region’s most counterfeited drugs, Raymond says, counterfeit antibiotics are the bigger concern.

“Most rural farmers in provincial Laos are not getting a hold of fake Viagra,” Raymond says. “But they are getting a hold of fake antibiotics and fake anti-malarials.”

Cheap, counterfeit medicines are particularly attractive to the farming poor, who often buy from rural pharmacies. Consumers may be aware it’s a knock-off, Raymond says, but believe the pill has some effectiveness. Even though the legit drugs are cheap by Western standards, the difference in cents is considerable in places such as Cambodia.

“We’re not talking about designer drugs for cancer,” he says. “We’re talking about really cheap pharmaceuticals that have been in their generic form for years. But counterfeiters still have a financial incentive, even if they can undercut the competition by a couple of cents.”

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/thailand/091020/fake-viagra-pharma-bangkok-patpong