Patients "fail to take fake medicines risk seriously"

Major international research, including the views of bodies that represent over 121,000 patients across Europe, was unveiled in Dublin, Ireland - one of the world's biggest net exporters of pharmaceuticals. Also, a leading health campaigner has called for patient groups across Europe to unite to battle against the growing problem of fake (counterfeit) medicines that are entering the European market. 560,000 fake medicines were seized at the European Union's borders in 2005, a 100% increase from 2004, and it appears that there has been a three-fold increase for 2006.

The report, titled What should be done about counterfeit medicines, reveals a worrying lack of knowledge among patients and patient organizations into the scale of the counterfeit medicines problem across Europe. 20% of the advocacy groups surveyed said that they have received reports of counterfeit medicines from their members (or from the public) and 18% of respondents think counterfeit medicines are a serious problem.

Presenting the findings, Stephen McMahon, chairman of the Irish Patients' Association, commented: "the World Health Organization estimates that up to 10% of all medicines are counterfeits, rising to 25% in some countries (Marketletters passim). This is a serious issue. We know thousands of men, women and children have died from fake medicines. My grave fear for patients everywhere is that the estimated seizures of medicines are no more than a few hours' production capacity in the $35.0 billion a year counterfeit medicine pipeline."