Dateline NBC-Inside The World of Counterfeit Drugs

I think it's true, Dateline NBC has been following it since last year

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13137839/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13099555/

• June 9, 2006 | 8:14 p.m. ET

Finally, a solution? (Steve Eckert, Dateline producer)

It’s been a long time coming.

But today the Food and Drug Administration finally acted to implement a law Congress passed 18-years ago — a law designed to protect the safety of your prescription medicines.

Last Sunday, Dateline showed how loopholes in the law were allowing counterfeit medicines to sneak into the mainstream medicine supply.  We even showed cases where the bogus drugs were reaching the shelves of trusted local pharmacies.

The problem should have been fixed two  decades ago.  There was a scandal over counterfeit birth control pills.  Congress passed a new law to require medicines to have records — so-called pedigrees — to assure they were genuine.  President Ronald Reagan signed the bill.  But for the next 18 years some of the rules to implement the law were never finalized.

And experts told us the resulting loopholes left the door open to counterfeits.

Thanks in part to your strong reaction to the Dateline broadcast, the FDA today announced new rules, effective in December. They’ll require medicines to be tracked every time they change hands from the factory all the way to the pharmacy.

Slamming the door, we hope, on the counterfeiters.

For more information, check the FDA Web site. Click here to read and watch the Dateline report.