Taking things at face value

If it looks like an elephant, feels like an elephant, and smells like an elephant, goes the saying, it is fairly safe to assume that it is an elephant. Unfortunately, to make a similar assumption about a drug that to all intents and purposes appears to be genuine could have serious and even life-threatening consequences.

Although manufacturers make considerable efforts to prevent counterfeiting of their products, the amount of money to be made means that the counterfeiters will go to even more extraordinary lengths to catch up with the latest technologies designed to outwit them.

So how is the consumer to recognise a genuine product when he sees it? Often pharmacists, doctors and other healthcare professionals would be hard put to pick out the fakes - the man in the street has no real chance.

Even more alarming is the fact that a significant number of consumers say they would be willing to buy - and presumably to take - pharmaceutical products in the full knowledge that they are counterfeit. No one ever died because they wore a fake Rolex watch or counterfeit Dior perfume, but to take a tablet knowing that it may contain no active ingredient or be contaminated with a harmful substance defies belief.

At least obtaining the drug from a pharmacy or hospital by means of a doctor's prescription gives the best chance of receiving an authentic product. Buying over the internet offers no such guarantee. A recent report by monitoring company Envisional found that hundreds of prescription drugs, including Viagra, Xenical, Prozac and Phentermine, are freely available for purchase on unregulated sites without prescription, together with performance-enhancing drugs, including banned substances like EPO.

With the market for online prescription drugs valued at an estimated US$4.4bn (€4.3bn), it is no wonder that the number of sites is proliferating. There are, of course, legitimate on-line pharmacies that insist on a prescription before supplying the drug, but once again the difficulty lies in detecting which sites are bona fide.

Drugs arriving through the post having been dispatched from some anonymous warehouse by a company that may exist only in cyberspace are even harder to authenticate than those obtained by conventional routes. And even if they are genuine, they may be out of date or have deteriorated due to unsuitable and unmonitored storage conditions.

The pharmaceutical industry is one of the most heavily regulated sectors - and for very good reason. Strict checks and controls exist at every stage of the value chain to protect manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and - most importantly - consumers, and anything that threatens that security should be fought tooth and nail.