Americans turn to web to learn about fake and counterfeit drugs

More than six million American consumers have logged on to BuySafeDrugs.info over the last year to learn about the risks associated with fake and counterfeit medicines. The web site, sponsored by the Pharmaceutical Research Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), was launched June 21, 2005, and is the first on-line clearinghouse of information on the potential dangers of buying medicines outside of the secure US drug delivery system.

"When we launched the site, our goal was to educate and inform patients about the growing problem of fake, substandard and counterfeit drugs imported into the United States. Since then, BuySafeDrugs.info and the number of people visiting it have grown tremendously. This demonstrates the need to provide patients with reliable information on how to identify potential problems so they are armed to make smart decisions about where to get their medicines," said Ken Johnson, senior vice president of the PhRMA.

In the year since the web site's launch, numerous federal and international authorities have weighed in on the dangers of illegal importation and counterfeiting, including the Food and Drug Administration, Drug Enforcement Agency and the World Health Organization, says the PhRMA. In December, an FDA operation found that nearly half of the imported drugs it intercepted from four selected countries were shipped to fill orders that consumers believed that they were placing with "Canadian" pharmacies. A number of these products were found to be counterfeit. On June 4, NBC News's "Dateline," aired a stunning expose into the growing international problem of counterfeit prescription drugs, it added.