Fake Drugs
This is from an article by Roger Bate in The American:
The counterfeiters can illegally buy the pill bottles used for legitimate pills for about 3 cents. Near-perfect fake labels cost about 20 cents each. The active ingredient for 30 pills costs, at most, 25 cents. So, for about 50 cents, counterfeiters can make a bottle of Viagra with an end value of between $30 and $50 in India. If the counterfeiters have international connections, then the profits can be even greater. A 30-pill bottle of a drug labeled as Viagra could sell for as much as $360.
This article is essentially about how easy it is to make a copycat “unauthorized generic” version of a drug still under patent protection. There are some public health advocates who fail to see the harm in this if poor Indians and Africans cannot afford the name brand medication. But I imagine the next logical step for the fraudsters and their dishonest competitors is to dispense without the active ingredient and make a few pennies more per bottle on a totally worthless therapy. This is happening in Africa and Asia with drugs such as anti-malarials. A few years ago, several million counterfeit birth control bills were imported from Spain, which were later found to contain absolutely no active ingredient.