How many pharmacies in your street? I can count five over 500 meters. This must mean we are all very sick and needing constant medication – or, like beauty salons and massage parlors, the collective imagination is lacking somewhat.
But back to the pharmacies, with so many of them, the only way they can compete with each other is on price. A box of Enalapril looks the same as any other box of Enalapril. So where do they get cheaper drugs in the first place?
The big money spinners are the drugs which can keep you in a state of perpetual priapism, a continuing (and painful) male erection and the term was coined after the Greek god Priapus who is shown in paintings to have a central member like a third leg.
Cheap pills for Erectile Dysfunction (ED) that seem too good to be true, are usually just that – too good to be true! The chances are very high that they are counterfeit.
One of the patients showed me a box purporting to be genuine brand name Cialis tablets, which were not having the desired effect. I was immediately suspicious as the box was not all that well printed. I was quite sure they were counterfeit when I read the Patient Information slip. The English grammar was incorrect, and there were spelling mistakes. Eli Lilly, the ‘real’ manufacturer does not send out mis-spelled literature with their product.
Eli Lilly’s website on Cialis confirms that there is fake Cialis in the marketplace. The website suggests you ask yourself these questions; any “yes” answers could mean that the Cialis being sold may be fake:
Is the price so much lower than the price at the hospital pharmacy that it seems too good to be true?
Does the pharmacy offer “soft tab” or “fast dissolve” Cialis? (Cialis only comes in tablets. There is no such thing as “soft tab” or “fast dissolve” Cialis.)
Does your local pharmacy offer “generic Cialis” or a drug with a name that is similar to Cialis? (Such products have not have been evaluated by the FDA for safety and effectiveness – they could be harmful.)
The World Health Organization puts the annual amount of counterfeit drugs sales at something like $35-40 billion per year. No wonder I (and you) get so many offers of drugs through the internet. That’s a very large pie.
The World Health Organization also estimates that one in three drugs on the worldwide market today is counterfeit. Sometimes the fake drugs contain toxic substances from which you can die.
Pfizer’s laboratories analyze the fakes and a representative stated, “We’ve seen boric acid, we’ve seen heavy metals, we’ve seen road paint, we’ve also seen floor wax to coat the pills and give them a shine. Obviously, they are detrimental to anyone’s health.”
It is not just Eli Lilly that is targeted. Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer (yes chaps, the makers of the blue diamonds of happiness) estimates its annual losses to counterfeit drug sales at $2 billion.
However, this is actually a serious situation. If specific drugs are only available through pharmacies, on the prescription of a doctor, is it safe to just buy over the counter (or the internet), without any doctor’s advice?
The American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says, “Patients who buy prescription drugs from websites operating outside the law are at increased risk of suffering life-threatening adverse events, such as side effects from inappropriately prescribed medications, dangerous drug interactions, contaminated drugs, and impure or unknown ingredients found in unapproved drugs.”
According to WHO, drugs commonly counterfeited include antibiotics, antimalarials, hormones and steroids. Increasingly, anticancer and antiviral drugs are also fake. And you can add to that, the ‘blue diamonds’. Never forget the phrase “Caveat emptor” (Let the buyer beware).
If you receive a spam e-mail from someone who you don’t know, offering you specific pharmaceuticals at a cheap price, that should be enough for you to go no further. If your local pharmacies will offer you ‘name brand’ medication that is supposedly prescription only at a very cheap price, that should ring alarm bells in your head too.
Get your medications on a doctor’s prescription from a pharmacy you can trust. Or suffer the consequences.
