Chinese distributor of BOGUS diabetes test strips sold wide variety of medical testing supplies

[PA Democrat]

including tests for HIV, hepatitis, prostate cancer, pregnancy. I wonder if any of these were bogus as well?

http://www.tradekey.com/profile_view/uid/3406/Halson-Pharmaceutical.htm

More background on this story:


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/17/business/worldbusiness/17fraud.html?ex=1345003200&en=0e149b3f7e26d0ef&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

A global hunt started by Johnson & Johnson has tracked to China some counterfeit versions of the test strips used by 10 million Americans to measure their blood sugar levels.

Potentially dangerous copies of the OneTouch Test Strip sold by the company’s LifeScan unit surfaced in American and Canadian pharmacies last year, according to federal court documents unsealed in June. J.& J., one of the world’s largest makers of consumer health products, learned of the bogus test strips from patients’ complaints in September.

Tipped off by the company, the Food and Drug Administration issued a consumer alert without disclosing the link to China. No injuries were reported, but inaccurate test readings may lead a person with diabetes to inject the wrong amount of insulin, causing harm or death.

The investigation found that a distributor in China was the source of about a million fake test strips that have turned up in at least 35 states and eight countries. The trail, initiated by calls to a LifeScan hot line, led detectives to 700 pharmacies where the products were sold, then to eight American wholesalers, then to two importers. One importer was in the United States and was found in a Las Vegas hotel room.

[gulliver]

1. How counterfeit are these?

When I read articles like this where the drug companies start the investigation, I'm skeptical. They say these test strips are "potentially dangerous copies". Maybe. Or maybe they do exactly what the real test strips do but cost a whole lot less. The same for the other drugs.

Illegal drugs like heroin, cocaine, and pot come into the country all the time, and they almost always do exactly what they are supposed to do.

There was a recent case where a pharmacist was taking legal, non-counterfeit, prescription cancer medicine and watering it down to increase profits. So it is not like the for-profit, official path from manufacturer to consumer is fool proof.

The point is not that the counterfeit drugs are a good thing. I would just like to know how much of the problem is consumer safety and how much is intellectual property infringement. Those have different legal priorities in my mind. Remember, the drug companies also told us that we shouldn't reimport even "genuine" (but far cheaper) medicine from Canada based on "safety concerns."

[Bitwit1234]

2. The must be dangerous. I received a letter from Life Scan

because I have a One Touch Diabetes gu louse tester. They told me to check the strips and if they had a certain mark than return them immediately to the pharmacy where I purchased them for exchange. My son uses the one touch I use another kind. So he checked and we were not using those strips. As I said they must be dangerous or they would not have said replace them.

[hedgehog]

3. Counterfeit is counterfeit, it's a copy of the real thing masquerading as the

real thing. Generally, that means that someone is making a cheaper copy of the real thing that isn't made the same way as the real thing. Counterfeit hand bags, not a problem. Counterfeit medicines, auto parts, computer parts, that's a problem. For example, bolts are often given special heat treating to ensure that they have certain qualities of strength and flexibility. Heat treating costs money. It's a lot cheaper just to put the stamp on the bolt and not heat treat it. To bad for the end user who was expacting that bolt to hold on an airplane wing.

[gulliver]

5. OK, but risk is also risk.

I agree with your point essentially. I would not want to fly in a plane with counterfit or knock-off bolts holding it together. I would not want to take a counterfeit medicine. But I would take a generic medicine. What we could be looking at are identical compounds that are illegal only because they violate patent and trademark laws. Those are still crimes, of course, but it is a far different crime if the compounds themselves are worthless or even directly dangerous.

If I were a poor heart patient, either here or in a poorer country, and I had to face the choice of whether to eat right, heat the house, take half pills, or buy a counterfeit drug, I'm afraid I would weigh it.

Of course, if we had single payer national health insurance, this counterfeit stuff is another thing we would not have to worry about. But I don't hear any drug companies proposing that solution.

[hedgehog]

6. I'm not sure where you're coming from on this.

People paid full price expecting the real thing. Somewhere along the line, someone got a deal and made big bucks selling this stuff at full price to the next person in the chain, whether it was a distributor, pharmacy or patient. Somehow I doubt the Chinese manufacturer out of the goodness of his heart made exact functional copies of these strips and then sold them with a price break to get them into the US market.

[gulliver]

7. We need more information, even in this case.

I really don't know the particulars of this case, what the money flow was or whether the strips in this case were exact functional copies. There were legitimate wholesalers and pharmacies in the loop apparently. The end result may very well have been lower prices at the pharmacy, or the money may have been pocketed by a single middle man. There may even have been some black market diversion of the product.

There were no injuries reported, according to the article, although the risk is obvious. The problem was discovered by the manufacturer of the proprietary strips, not by the consumers.

It would not necessarily be out of the "goodness of his heart" that someone would provide exact functional copies. It would not be good business to have consumers injured or killed. My understanding of the patent process is that the complete chemical structure of patented drug products must be disclosed. That makes patent breaking (and generics and "legitimate" knock-offs) very feasible. Then with Chinese labor, no marketing budget (stealing the trademark), no FDA, no standards...you get my point.

All I am saying is that I never see the thing you suspect (that the counterfeit products are completely bogus) addressed. Here is a link where Johnson and Johnson says that the test results are "erratic." They don't say that the strips are just completely non-functional. That raises the probability in my mind that the strips are actually patent and trademark infringements, perhaps not subject to the quality control of the patent/trademark owner/licensee, but not mere fakes.

http://www.jnj.com/news/jnj_news/20061017_101807.htm

The articles on counterfeits never seem to address this issue. Perhaps the MSM think it is irresponsible to say "Yes, the counterfeits contain the same patented technology, but they have erratic quality control." If they did, there might be a large shift to buying the Chinese stuff in or out of the pharmacy by a lot of poor people, not just in the U.S., but worldwide. It would sort of be the drug equivalent of Napster. The music is pirated, but it sounds fine.

Counterfeiting is wrong and illegal in more than one way. But I would like to be told what is actually going on. Is it China countenancing the breaking of our patents, or is it mere fraud, or what?

[Castleman]

4. You get what you pay for...

You're not skeptical, you're not seeing the real issue here. Cheap, Chinese made crap will KILL YOU if you are not careful!!! Yeah, a knockoff handbag won't hurt you, but if we keep demanding cheaper and cheaper shit at our local WalMart (like I'm dumb enough to shop there), this is the result we can expect. Lethal, poorly made second rate crap, all designed so someone can get richer off of your desire to save a few bucks! Use your head and demand high quality USA made stuff. If you buy a crappy knock-off made in a factory with no safety regulations, and ZERO oversight, you're taking a risk.
On a handbag, not so much, but on your HEALTH???