Israelis prominent in selling counterfeit or illegal drugs online
Israelis and former Israelis are behind many of the world’s Internet sites that sell counterfeit or other illegal drugs online providing useless or dangerous products to people who think they are getting the real thing. With the help of the Israel Police, the Customs Authority and foreign units, caught numerous criminals says Mickey Arieli, director of the Health Ministry’s Pharmaceutical Crime Unit.
Arieli, a pharmacist who made aliya from Chicago nearly four decades ago and established the unit in 2007, said that prescription drugs meant to treat serious diseases like cancer, malaria or attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder but whose retail prices were unaffordable, were reaching the public, especially via illegal Internet sales. Yet Arieli and the two other professionals who constitute the unit told The Jerusalem Post in an interview that they were reaching only the "top of the iceberg" and that these activities seriously endangered public health.
"Our job is not to protect the intellectual property of legitimate pharmaceutical companies, but to protect public health," said Arieli, whose unit is located in two small rooms in the ministry’s national drug lab. In addition, erectile dysfunction drugs claiming to be Viagra and Cialis are widely marketed through illegal Internet sites and Hebrew newspaper ads, but are rarely the real thing. Rather, they are either harmless pills, or they contain drugs meant for other conditions.
Often, preparations claimed to be food supplements actually contain active pharmaceutical ingredients that could harm and even kill. He said that before the establishment of the Internet and the appearance of erectile dysfunction drugs, pharmaceutical crimes had been quite rare. Last year, a number of people died in Singapore from taking counterfeit food supplements that actually contained a drug meant for diabetics that brought down glucose levels. Elsewhere overseas, counterfeit drugs meant to treat malaria and/or cause abortion were actually made of paracetamol, which is a pain reliever and fever reducer and can be toxic to the liver if taken in high doses.
Fake or otherwise illegal "lifestyle" drugs such as erectile dysfunction drugs, diet pills and baldness treatments are the biggest sources of income for pharmaceutical criminals. Most counterfeit drugs, said Arieli, are manufactured in China, while generic "Viagra" is usually made in India and shipped to Israel. Illegal factories abroad and in Israel almost always function in very unsanitary conditions and not at the necessary temperatures and humidity.
Other global crimes include diversion, in which subsidized AIDS drugs meant to go to Africa, where the infectious disease is rampant, are shipped to Europe instead to be sold at higher prices. Counterfeit, illegal or dangerous medications often reach West Bank pharmacies. Arieli believes this rarely occurs in licensed Israeli pharmacies, but sometimes they do slip through, unintentionally or intentionally, via private pharmacists. Health fund pharmacies are the safest, he said,
because the funds purchase medications in bulk and supply their pharmacies nationally from a central source.
According to Arieli, illegal Web sites operated by Israelis or former Israeli residents usually have nothing to do with the manufacture of phony or illegal drugs, but expedite the transfer and payment for them. Besides the Internet, illegal medications such as amphetamines are sold at sex supply stores and in kiosks around the country, Arieli added. All of this is "black money."
He urges people to purchase medications, both over-the-counter and prescription drugs, only from pharmacies licensed by the Health Ministry. But Arieli stressed that people should also carefully look at medications they purchase, making sure that boxes and containers do not suddenly look different from what they have received before; that the printed warnings appear in Hebrew, Arabic and English rather than only in English or Arabic; and that the serial numbers and expiration dates on the packages are identical to those on the vials, dispensers or tubes inside.
Viagra, which helps men overcome impotency, also began life with another purpose in mind. It was originally designed to treat angina, the chest pain associated with heart disease."It’s essentially a Viagra-like drug for women in that diminished desire or libido is the most common feminine sexual problem, like erectile dysfunction is in men."
