Overseas drug makers caught (once again) faking test data

Do you really know what’s in your drugs and where they come from?

They’re lying, cheating and destroying the evidence.

And it could cost you your life.

Overseas drug companies — manufacturers that make medications millions of Americans take every day — have been caught red-handed faking test data and using ingredients we don’t even know about.

It’s all so they can get their products approved and into your medicine cabinet — whether they’re safe or not.

Even the FDA knows that the problem is spiraling out of control. And it’s never been more important for you to take one critical — and potentially life-saving — step before you fill your next prescription.

The new Wild West

The most recent FDA warning letter was zipped out to an Indian drug facility just a few weeks ago.

But the agency might as well make a form and print off a few hundred copies, because it isn’t the first — and the way things are going it will be far from the last.

This warning went off to a company headquartered in Mumbai called Megafine Pharma Limited for what a trade pub called the same kind of drug testing “shenanigans” that got it in hot water last year.

And a recent investigation by the CBC news in Canada found that Megafine is far from alone in this epidemic of drug-data fraud.

The Canadians reported that several dozen overseas companies have been “caught in the act” of making up facts and figures used by regulators in approving meds.

I’m talking about things like pages of important information found buried “under rubble,” erased computer records and faked blood tests. During one FDA inspection of an Indian company, when an employee saw the inspectors coming, he grabbed a thumb drive and ran off with it!

And I’m pretty sure he wasn’t just late for a lunch date.

Two months ago the World Health Organization found that an Indian research firm that does testing for a group of international drug companies was deliberately manipulating drug samples. Something the WHO called a “common practice,” that indicates fraud.

Around the same time the FDA investigated the same company and found evidence that it was “deliberately switching” blood samples around to have it appear that generic meds had the same effect as the original ones.

On top of fudging safety testing, the manufacture of drugs and their active ingredients has turned into a global patchwork quilt that’s almost impossible to track.

One pharma expert put it this way. “We know where our shirts are made, we know where our shoes are made,” but where our drugs and the ingredients come from is mostly a mystery.

The worst part is that the FDA knows this is a problem — but they’re not lifting a finger to stop these meds from coming into the country.

It’s quite obvious that our government has no idea of how to fix this global mess, or even how to begin.

Fortunately for all of us, the Europeans are a bit ahead of the game. Last year I told you about an investigation out of the European Union that found hundreds of generic drugs were approved based on fraudulent data.

At the time the European Medicines Agency was recommending banning 700 different generics, many that are sold here in the U.S.

You can check out the full list here. And if you find a drug you’re taking, talk to your doc about making a switch — or, better yet, whether you really need to be on the drug in the first place.

Sources:
“Secrets and lies: Faked data and lack of transparency plague global drug manufacturing” Kelly Crowe, June 10, 2016, CBCNews, cbc.ca