Harm tablets. Counterfeit tablets capture the market.

Harm of pills-fakes. Where do the shuttles mainly bring pharmaceutical substances for the manufacture of pills-counterfeits? How harmful can pills be? Did the expert's forecasts confirm the increase in the volume of pills-counterfeits in our country? What ended the story with fake "No-shpa" tablets? How did the falsification of homeopathic tablets of the famous German brand HEEL be found? What is the annual turnover of fake medicines? What are the counterfeit pills?

Harm tablets. How are things?

The crisis of the nineties and the total deficit of all brought to the market pharmaceutical preparations of counterfeit tablets. It was in those dashing years that a flood of fake tablets literally poured into the country, mainly from Asian countries. Shuttles from India and China drove pharmaceutical substances (substances for making fakes), and craftsmen made from them tablets that sold under the guise of famous brands. Damage to tablets of this quality could be very strong due to dangerous side effects. In these same years, a scandal with a fake "No-spoof" arose all over the country. But neither the manufacturers of these fake pills nor the realizers of the fakes have been brought to justice.

Today, the sale of tablets is one of the most profitable businesses in the world. Revenues of the largest pharmaceutical companies in recent years exceed revenues from the sale of oil, weapons and cars. Sometimes the pharmacological campaigns themselves make fakes on their own original tablets. But the harm of tablets made in this way is extremely difficult to pinpoint. The current economic crisis has led to a shortage of imported tablets. Even in the autumn of last year, experts predicted that the country will be overwhelmed by a wave of pills-fakes. So it turned out: falsifications did not just break through into Russia, they were made here so that it is impossible to distinguish them from normal tablets.

Most often, the object of falsification is a drug that has an annual sales turnover of at least several million dollars. In general, we should "congratulate" Russia, so to speak, with the fact that high technologies in criminal business have unfortunately come to our country and, unfortunately, help to seize the legal pharmaceutical market. For example, counterfeits of famous homeopathic tablets are made so professionally that it is very difficult to distinguish them immediately: a hologram on the package, a bar code, a series, but the active substance is not. So it was with the tablets of the famous German campaign "HEEL". Counterfeiting was discovered by chance, when the patients themselves began to come to the pharmacies and complain about the unusual, too sugary taste of the tablets. Damage to the pills was of no particular danger, as they contained sucrose (extremely harmful to diabetics) and starch, but the very fact of counterfeit such a powerful brand undoubtedly outrages.

The "HEEL" campaign is now conducting its own investigation. No one is going to hurry in this matter, and the state inspectorate for control of medicines does not want to admit the real problem of the falsification of tablets. Indeed, the annual turnover of counterfeit medicines in Russia now stands at $ 200-300 million (15-20% of the total sales of medicines) and at the same time slowly but surely grows. Unfortunately, we do not have an effective system of state monitoring of the quality of medicines, and it is almost impossible to prove that the harm of tablets took place and caused damage to health.

Now, when some pills are very expensive, it is obvious that the problem of falsifications will only worsen, and more import and popular tablets will be falsified. And now scammers have learned to forge many different tablets - from antibiotics to insulin, which is diluted with water.

As a specialist in the marketing department of one of the pharmacological companies, firms usually do not rush to admit that their counterfeits have been made on their tablets, since this has a very negative effect on the image of the manufacturer and, therefore, on the trade turnover of medicines. As for law enforcement agencies and medical officials, it's no secret that from such a "pharmaceutical pie" they themselves have good dividends.