Dallas Police Department officials initially proclaimed 2001 a banner year for drug busts, reportedly seizing 1,440 pounds of cocaine and 238 pounds of methamphetamine with an estimated street value of $65 million.

An investigation by WFAA-TV (Channel 8), however, discovered that nearly half the cocaine and a quarter of the methamphetamine seizures contained little or no illegal drugs. Through extensive interviews while tracking lab results and court records, WFAA-TV found that a key ingredient in at least several seizures was gypsum, the main component of Sheetrock.

In a series of broadcasts beginning Dec. 31, WFAA-TV reporter Brett Shipp and producer Mark Smith questioned the legitimacy of dozens of drug cases made by a cadre of street-level DPD narcotics officers and their paid confidential informants.

The suspects in the "fake drug" cases often were curiously similar. Most were recent Mexican immigrants working as auto mechanics or day laborers; few spoke English or had prior criminal records. Often, the alleged drugs were found in duffel or trash bags inside vehicles parked at auto shops or loaned to the suspect.

Many suspects only learned that they faced drug charges days after their arrests. Most, if not all, claimed to have never seen the alleged drugs; several passed polygraphs when asked if they knew about the seized items.

Facing minimum 15-year-to-life prison sentences, many defendants languished in jail for three months or more before the seized substances were sent off for lab tests that later revealed little or no drugs. The findings contradicted the results of field tests police say they conducted during the arrests.

Cases often were based primarily on the word of informants. Police say one of the informants received more than $210,000 - about a third of all the money DPD paid its nearly 150 informants for 2001. Despite dozens of arrests, police produced only a single videotape to help corroborate the drug charges. Few of the seizures - several dubbed the largest in Dallas County history - led to the confiscation of money, weapons or other assets.

Because of the questions raised by several dozen fake-drug cases, prosecutors have dismissed more than 80 cases - including legitimate busts. Nearly all the cases involved two undercover officers and three informants. The FBI is investigating several officers and their payments to these informants.

The cases have also prompted Dallas police and prosecutors to enact a number of policy changes, including:

* all seized drugs are sent immediately for lab analysis

* prosecutors will not seek to indict a suspect until the lab results are completed

* the police chief will be notified of any payment to an informant greater than $1,000

* every three months, audits will be performed on funds used in DPD narcotics cases

* narcotics officers will receive additional training in conducting field tests on drugs

This timeline charts the major developments in the ongoing investigation.

Check out the rest of this time line on fake drugs and the Dallas Police investigation.

LONDON (England) — A slim, easy-to-use device that checks the authenticity of medicines would be available in every pharmacy if Facundo Fernandez had his way.

The gadget he has in mind would provide consumers peace of mind about the safety and quality of prescription drugs — something that is increasingly a concern amid a rise in fake medicines.

A self-described optimist, Fernandez doesn’t think his dream is that far-fetched. “I think it’s possible,” he told CNN. “The technology is available. It’s a matter of making this really widespread.”

An analytical chemist and assistant professor at Georgia Tech, Fernandez has spent the better part of the last decade fighting the global battle against counterfeit drugs.

Taken with the intention of curing illness, phony pharmaceuticals undermine treatment, and in some cases, can have lethal consequences for their unsuspecting buyers.

Fernandez’s work revolves around a technique, called mass spectrometry, that identifies the chemical make-up of a compound. The process is usually time consuming, but Fernandez developed a procedure for speeding up the process.

The ability to analyze the authenticity of hundreds of samples of drugs in a single day played a key role in an international operation that resulted in catching a Chinese manufacturer of fake anti-malaria drugs last year.

Are you worried about the safety of your medicines? What do you think should be done to combat the problem?

Many of the world’s bogus drugs originate in Asia, particularly China, according to the U.S. Center for Medicine in the Public Interest. The fakes oftentimes are exported and change hands many times before reaching their unwitting consumers.

“These are criminal organizations that are manufacturing, distributing and selling counterfeit medicines,” says Thomas Kubic, a former FBI agent and president of the Pharmaceutical Security Institute, a group funded by drugmakers.

The growing trade has been fueled by the growth of Internet drug sales and the lure of lucrative profits. The Center for Medicine in the Public Interest expects global sales of fake drugs to reach $75 billion by 2010.

Victims include those like Nneka and Chimezie Ononaku, a couple in Nigeria who unwittingly poisoned their infant son last month after feeding him teething medicine that was contaminated with antifreeze.

Corporations, too, get hit. Drugmakers like Pfizer, whose erectile dysfunction drug Viagra is one of the most counterfeited drugs in the world, potentially can lose billions in revenue to fakes every year.

Read the rest of this article on fake drugs from CNN.com.

By Andrewly A. Agaton, Alphonsus Luigi E. Alfonso and Arian Anderson R. Rabino

After melamine-laced milk and lead-contaminated toys that left consumers paranoid last year, another health danger is coming—in the form of drugs that either do not help people get well or are toxic.

In 2008, the Department of Health (DOH) reported that one in every 10 medicines available in the market is counterfeit.

Republic Act (RA) No. 9502, otherwise known as “Universally Accessible Cheaper and Quality Medicines Act of 2008,” and RA No. 8203 or the “Special Law on Counterfeit Drugs,” classify drugs as chemical compounds or biological substances intended for use in treatment, prevention or diagnosis of diseases in man or animals.

RA 8203, meanwhile, defines counterfeit drugs as any product with the wrong or no active ingredients, which result in the reduction of the drug’s safety, efficacy, quality, strength, or purity.

According to Nemia Getes, officer-in-charge of the Regulation Division 1 of the Bureau of Food and Drugs (BFAD), counterfeit drugs, which can either be “fake” or “unregistered,” are illegal and hazardous.

“Unregistered drugs are products without the trademark, identification mark, or name which is registered for use in this country. These are unlawful, imported drug products,” she told the Varsitarian. “Fake drugs contain no amount, or have a different active ingredient, or possess less than 80 percent of what the drug claims as part of its ingredients.”

These products are deliberately mislabeled with respect to the name and source, with fake packaging. They can claim to be either branded or generic products, Getes added.

Dr. Benjamin Co, executive director of the UST Center for Drug Research, Evaluation and Studies (Cedres), said expensive medicines are commonly faked.

“A cheap drug is rarely faked because everybody can afford it. So, most of the over-the-counter drugs are not faked. Expensive medications which cost 3,000 pesos to 4,000 pesos per vial are the usual drugs replicated and sold as fake,” Co said.

UST Cedres conducts drug researches, such as bioavailability, which determine whether chemicals are absorbed by the human body; and bioequivalence, the process of comparing the effects of drugs. It also conducts clinical research and monograph testing for the academe, pharmaceutical industry, and private and public agencies to ensure the safety and effectiveness of drugs.

Fake drugs kill

Co, former member of the National Adverse Drug Reaction Advisory Committee, said the proliferation of fake and unregistered drugs is a serious problem, and the lack of access to medicines as well as poverty are partly to blame.

Read the rest of this article on what The Philippines are doing to fight fake drugs .

mPedigree is a mobile application that allows users to text-message at no cost, a quality-authentication code found on the packaging of anti-Malarial and other medications to a provisioned mobile shortcode in order to guard against counterfeit drugs believed to be responsible for an alarming number of deaths, especially in the developing world.

With the mounting cost of healthcare in Africa coupled with the dangers associated with using fake drugs, the mPedigree innovation is an enormous boost to healthcare on the continent.

Earlier this year, mPedigree won the 1st place position in the Emerging Markets category of the Nokia Innovators contest and has won a number of other honours since then.

Read this post on the fight against fake drugs on the Patients and Patents blog.

The news of a fake malaria drug in our country really was a shock to many, including some health officials who might have prescribed this drug to patients. Indeed last Thursday the statement alerted the public of the presence of fake coartem malaria tablets in Kumasi.

The statement said the confirmatory tests on the fake products have shown that the fake Coartem tablets do not contain Artemether and Lumefantrine, the main active ingredients of the original and genuine Coartem tablet.

This means that most of the people in Kumasi and the Ashanti Region in general who had taken or are taking the fake tablet derived no benefit from it, since counterfeit medications can be hazardous to the point of being deadly. It might not be in Kumasi alone, definitely, the drugs passed through Accra to Kumasi.

The FDB directed all pharmacies, licensed chemical stores and healthcare facilities to recall the fake drugs from their shelves and dispensaries. Health care workers have also been directed to assist patients and customers to distinguish genuine coartem from the counterfeit. This newspaper wonders why the FDB thinks a mere press release can compel pharmacists and dispensaries to comply with this directive.

The FDB knows more than anyone that the drug counterfeit business is a multi-million dollar business globally, which is gaining roots in Ghana, the emerging gateway to everything.

It has been estimated that up to 15% of all sold drugs are fake, and in parts of Africa this figure exceeds 50% , which paints a grim picture of health delivery in Ghana and elsewhere in Africa. China is emerging as a source country of counterfeit drugs . India and other Asian countries are emerging as sources. As Ghana’s trade with China and India is increasing each year, our authorities must keep a close eye on drugs from the two countries.

Read more about the fake drugs present in Africa.