Counterfeit Drugs

CBS's "60 Minutes" had a report last night about the rise of counterfeit drug sales in the United States, largely due to the irresistible lure of cheap, discounted prescription drugs in a country (this one, the U.S. of A.) where medications are simply damn too expensive. All sorts of counterfeits come from countries like China and India, and it takes a trained eye to spot the fakes from the real thing. Fake drugs include edible substances with no medicinal value and some ingredients that aren't edible at all - like chalk.

What I found even more shocking - but not so surprising - is that many of the Internet sites where such drugs are available pretend to be based in Canada. In Canada, of course, thanks to a health care system superior to that in the United States (if you find an industrialized country whose health care system isn't superior to the American one, please write a note on this post), real drugs are cheaper than on this side of the border. One of my British friends - who has National Health, obviously - sent me a link to a Canadian prescription drug site. I sent the link to my cousin. Now I'm left wondering if it's legitimate.

I'm also left wondering what's going to be done about lowering the price of prescription drugs, if anything, in this country. Something has to be done eventually. People have died from these fake drugs. They bought them because they couldn't afford the real ones.