Fake Viagra, And More, In Bangkok

[churchill]

Pharmo-piracy sweeps Thailand, and the rest of Southeast Asia. It's a deadly problem.

BANGKOK, Thailand — Little is real in Patpong, a glowing bazaar and sex district here in Bangkok. The Gucci is fake, the DVDs are pirated and the go-go girls tell every man he’s handsome.

Drugs too are sold here openly. Not speed or cocaine, but Viagra — or at least diamond-shaped, blue pills that resemble the real thing. After dark, one aging female vendor displays dingy Viagra boxes at her stall to attract customers.

When a man shows interest, she dispatches a teenage runner to retrieve the pills from a secret location nearby. The price: $6 per tablet, $4 cheaper than the average U.S. cost.

“You want it?” asks the runner. “It’s a good price.”

It’s likely too good to be true. Counterfeit pharmaceuticals are widespread in Southeast Asia, sold for cheap on the street or in rural mom-and-pop markets.

Though Viagra is one of the most common knock-offs, it’s much less worrisome than fake meds to fight malaria, tuberculosis and even HIV. They often contain little or no active ingredient. The result: Sickness, fatalities and a host of drug-resistant viruses.

“It might contain the correct active ingredient, but the wrong dose. Or it might contain nothing at all,” said Clemence Gautier, consultant at the Bangkok-based law firm Tilleke & Gibbins. The firm specializes in prosecuting counterfeiters for clients that include pharmaceutical firms Pfizer, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline.

Thai customs police, trained by Tilleke & Gibbins to spot fakes, often set aside boxes of seized goods for the attorneys to inspect and share with clients. Their stash amounts to 3,500-plus knock offs, many of which look astonishingly real.

Along with convincing bottles of Stolichnaya vodka, Casio calculators and even a working motorbike — all counterfeit — raids turn up a lot of fake medicine. The packages of “Throatsil” and faux-Viagra tablets stamped with the letters “VAG” are easy to spot. Many others aren’t.

“The counterfeiters are quite good at what they do,” Gautier says. “All the way down to the holograms on the box.”

The scope of counterfeit meds is difficult to gauge. But the World Health Organization has said that, in the worst-affected parts of Southeast Asia, as many as 30 percent of pharmaceuticals are lacking the stated active ingredient. This covers outright fakes, expired meds and even pills made improperly by well-meaning but barely regulated factories.

About 77 percent of bad meds are produced in China, according to GlaxoSmithKline. Just this week, a Chinese national was arrested in Bangkok with nearly $450,000 worth of Viagra knock-offs and sex toys, which are also illegal to buy or sell in Thailand.

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

[Mrjlh]

There's another thread about this but here's the problem: (but I don't think I'm supposed to link. but its important)

http://www.ukmedix.com/viagra/viagra-kamagra.cfm

Edited October 23, 2009 by Mrjlh

[Heng]

Sounds like Pfizer funded scare-mongering. By its very nature of use, and XX millions of drug seekers who want it without going through a physician first, there are going to be sildenafil deaths no matter what the brand or who is or isn't getting their royalties.

That said, the hospital route is the way to go, just so it's on the up and up... don't want to risk having say your insurance company's lawyer trying to get out of all or part of an insurance payment. Depending on the situation, might not be hard to spin a death to be less than accidental, especially if a large payment can be saved.

[DP25]

Where do I find this cheap bootleg vodka?

Maybe they should start up another fake advocacy group like USA for Innovation to further their drug scaremongering. They won't be happy until everyone on earth is paying to same extortionate rates that Americans have to for medication.

[flying]

$6 good price? Those same diamonds from India are $1 on the internet.

[PeaceBlondie]

I get my prescribed drugs here through medical school pharmacy. Since 1997, the only 'Viagra' that didn't work was prescribed and cost about $10 per pill.

[peter991]

the go-go girls tell every man he’s handsome.

Would a go-go girl tell you a LIE ? Maybe they just need contact lenses or glasses. Or maybe all the men they see are 'hansum man.'

Peter

[onomataho]

Sometimes a placebo tablet "does the trick" just as well!