Call for crack down on fake medicines

Posted 20/11/2012

There is a call for a global crackdown on the trade in counterfeit drugs. The British Medical Journal has issued an appeal to the World Health Organisation (WHO) to set up a framework to control the trade and protect the public.

In poorer nations it is said that one in every ten drug products is fake. Even in richer countries where there is better safety substandard, fake drugs still cause what are thought to be thousands of adverse reactions and even death. Not long ago in the US, contaminated drug supplies caused an outbreak of meningitis that so far has resulted in 16 deaths. WHO say that nearly a third of countries had little or no effective medicine regulation.

Trefine Maynard, a clinical negligence specialist at Ashtons Legal, says: “Today we have become used to moaning about the amount of Health and Safety regulation that we have in every area of our lives. However annoying much of this is, when you hear about the problems of lack of regulation, you realise that there is unquestionably a role for proper regulation in areas such as the supply of medicines. 

It would be very sad if the sometimes ludicrous effect of over regulation in some areas of daily life led us to ignore the very real need for close regulation in more essential areas such as drug supplies. Most of us look to medicines to help us when we are most in need. We have to be able to rely on these being what they say they are, and not contaminated or fake.  We have had a number of cases where the wrong kind of drug or the wrong dose of drug has been given and that is distressing enough.”Read more about our Medical Injury services.