Gypsum, arsenic, brick dust, cement, floor paste and lead-based road paint – such ingredients have been found by experts from the National Medicines Institute by examining pills for erectile dysfunction or slimming drugs. Poles spend one hundred million zlotys annually on such counterfeit drugs.
The ideal scenario looks like this:
A man comes to the sexologist’s office. Usually after fifty, but it can also be younger, even before thirty, because the problem of erectile dysfunction depends less and less on the date of birth. He is ashamed, embarrassed, but he doesn’t hide at home. He’s looking for help. The man is talking to the doctor. It can be about the nervous work or the stress that consumes him every day. He talks about the illnesses he has suffered, the drugs he is taking. The sexologist makes a diagnosis. He writes a prescription for drugs that help repair sex life. The man buys medicines at the pharmacy, returns to the doctor for consultations.
Life looks like this:
The same man, with the same problem of visiting the doctor, is so ashamed that he gives up on it. He heals himself by surfing the web on the websites of pharmacies, and more often private companies, which convince him that they understand him, want to help him, discreetly deliver the drug to the address indicated. The same drug that a doctor would have prescribed for him, only cheaper. Without a prescription and without leaving home. Just click and order. So the man clicks, orders and takes the drug. Not even knowing that he is playing with his own life.
– There are two types of patients who take drugs from illegal sources that I meet in my office. Some people come with a drug they have already purchased and want to find out if they can take it. This is not the worst situation yet, because I have the opportunity to talk to the patient and make him aware of the risks associated with using such drugs. Worse, if a patient receives a prescription from me, buys a drug in a pharmacy, is satisfied, but because the drug is not the cheapest, he searches for it online and does not come back for another prescription, since he can buy it online, without a prescription and cheaper. And taking these drugs from an unauthorized source can lead to unpredictable side effects and even death of the patient – says Dr. Andrzej Depko, vice president of the Polish Sexological Society.
Andrzej Depko talks about patients who sooner or later knock on sexologists’ offices, often disappointed with online treatments. Most men, however, never decide to visit a doctor, reaching for themselves new preparations.
Cautious estimates say that, on average, every fourth man suffering from erectile dysfunction buys drugs only on the black market. The problem is that the data comes from three years ago, and at that time the illegal market for counterfeit drugs for potency has grown enormously. The number of Polish men struggling with the problem of erectile dysfunction has also increased – from one and a half million in 1998 to about two and a half million today.
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Gypsum, arsenic and shoe polish
The growing incidence rate shows that it is the drugs used in the treatment of erectile dysfunction that constitute the largest group of counterfeit medications. Viagra or Cialis tablets, although officially available only on prescription, can be easily bought online or in local bazaars, especially in cities and towns located on the eastern wall of Poland. The much lower price than in the pharmacy attracts more and more patients. Gentlemen are not even surprised that the manufacturer’s leaflet is often not attached to the drug, and if it is, it is usually written only in Chinese or Arabic.
– Drugs for erectile dysfunction are most often the subject of our research. And, unfortunately, most often it turns out that if they were bought online or in a bazaar, they are fake – says Dr. Adam Mazurek from the National Medicines Institute, who is also an expert of the Polish Forensic Society.
An interesting provocation was carried out by Newsweek a few weeks ago. Journalists of the weekly ordered Viagra on one of the websites offering potency medications. The seller assured that the drug was original, produced by the American concern Pfizer. Journalists took this specificity for research at the National Medicines Institute. The expert opinion showed that the drug was falsified. The amount of the active ingredient (sildenafil) was smaller and the tablets contained completely different excipients than the real Viagra.
This is still nothing, because some test results at the institute may be frightening. In the composition of the studied drugs, experts found, inter alia, gypsum, arsenic, boric acid, brick dust, cement, floor paste, lead paint, nickel, shoe polish or talc. Although in Poland, doctors have not yet recorded cases of poisoning after taking counterfeit drugs for erectile dysfunction, no one needs to be convinced that such a composition of drugs is harmful instead of helping.
– I had patients who I wanted to prescribe a specific drug, and then they said not only this, this one is not helping me. It was their first visit to a doctor, they bought drugs themselves, from an illegal source. It did not work because it was a counterfeit – says Dr. Andrzej Depko.
Business is spinning
According to specialists, there may be more and more cases of counterfeiting drugs for erectile dysfunction in Poland. First of all, there is no shortage of customers. Secondly, the proximity of the former Soviet republics, which have become the main channel for transporting drugs produced in China or India, makes Poland, according to Interpol specialists, one of the countries most exposed to the flood of counterfeit drugs. Third, it is a very profitable business that is no longer dealt with by petty smugglers, but by organized crime groups.
– Medicines are most often transported to Poland by courier or as part of travel luggage returning from holidays in China or Egypt. For example, we detained a man returning from India who was carrying three thousand tablets of counterfeit Viagra in his luggage. He explained that he was transporting the medicine for his own use – says Grzegorz Świerkta from the Customs Chamber in Katowice.
Last year alone, customs officials seized counterfeit goods worth nearly XNUMX euros. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, because, according to estimates by the World Health Organization, Poles spend up to PLN XNUMX million a year on counterfeit drugs. We buy not only drugs for erectile dysfunction on the black market, but also steroids, dietary supplements and weight loss products from the Far East.
For example, at the end of October, policemen from Głogów detained a woman who was selling forbidden slimming pills via the Internet. For a package containing sixty tablets, it cost about PLN 130. Before she dropped in, she managed to sell the drug for over three thousand zlotys. She faces up to two years in prison.
In June, in turn, a group of people in Poznań who traded in counterfeit erectile dysfunction drugs and anabolic steroids. Police officers seized over eleven thousand counterfeit tablets and forbidden ampoules.
In turn, the aforementioned Newsweek journalists also ordered a popular Chinese slimming preparation on the Internet. It was to contain a lotus leaf, Job’s tears, mud sprouts, a concentrate of fiber and cellulose, extracts of watermelon, pumpkin and gourd seeds. The expert opinion showed that instead of natural ingredients, the drug most likely contained sibutramine, the active substance of one of the drugs for obesity, which promotes heart attacks and strokes. Due to its serious side effects, the substance was withdrawn by the European Union at the beginning of this year.
In total, by the end of October this year, experts from the National Medicines Institute found nearly forty counterfeit medicinal products.
– In addition to drugs for erectile dysfunction, these were products labeled only in the Far East languages, counterfeit dietary supplements containing undeclared active substances, including those that caused at least twenty deaths in Europe – explains Adam Mazurek from the National Medicines Institute. – We also had products containing yohimbine and cantaridine, labeled as homeopathic medicinal products, withdrawn from official circulation, as well as anabolic steroids and finally designer drugs – adds Mazurek.
Left drugs in pharmacies
According to the data of the World Health Organization, every tenth drug in the world is a counterfeit. In some countries, up to a third of all medications can be falsified. International gangs make a fortune from their trade. WHO experts estimate that at the end of this year their revenues from the sale of counterfeit drugs will reach the level of seventy-five billion dollars.
Counterfeiters have not only mastered the Internet, but are slowly starting to let their goods into traditional pharmacies. Counterfeit products have already been found in pharmacies in Great Britain, Germany and France. They sold fake painkillers, antibiotics and even cancer drugs. Deaths have been reported in France and England after taking the latter.
Fortunately, such cases have not been disclosed in Poland so far. Which does not mean that the problem does not concern us. The more so because this year the pharmaceutical inspection withdrew from pharmacies and stores herbal remedies for potency: Satibo, Libidoforte and Cupido Max. In all of them, experts found active substances that are not allowed in dietary supplements.
Text: Maciej Stańczyk
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