Around the globe, the production and distribution of substandard and counterfeit drugs is a vast, increasing and largely underreported, problem. Adulterated medicines contain little or none of the active ingredients found in their branded equivalent, and often have adverse health effects.
A new paper exposes the global threat of fake and substandard drugs and highlights many of the qualitative risks associated with counterfeit medicines. The authors also make a most disquieting observation—global aid agencies are promoting the spread of substandard drugs because of a misguided belief in the efficacy of untested medicines.
The full commentary and recommendations are available here.