Plan to curb prescription fraud questioned
Members of the Arizona State Board of Pharmacy are questioning the city of Peoria’s proposals to curb fraud in painkiller prescriptions.
City officials have proposed measures that include requiring pharmacists to take fingerprints before selling OxyContin and other addictive medicines.
The pharmacy board met last week with Peoria’s attorney and representatives of the pharmaceutical industry and the American Civil Liberties Union.
The board took no action, but called for more discussion.
ACLU attorney Dan Pochoda says Peoria would make pharmacies function as annexes to police stations to collect private information.
Peoria City Attorney Steve Kemp says fingerprinting was just one proposal.
He suggests the pharmacy board consider statewide mandates for pharmacists to require identification, report fraud cases and cooperate more with police.
Chinese National Faces Sentencing in Counterfeit Diet Drug Case
Shengyang Zhou, aka “Tom”, age 31, of Kunming, Yunnan, China, has entered a guilty plea to charges of trafficking in counterfeit versions of the pharmaceutical weight loss drug known as Alli.
Zhou entered the plea before U.S. District Judge Philip B. Brimmer. He is scheduled to be sentenced on May 6, 2011. A co-defendant, Qingming Hu, age 61 of Plano, Texas, pled guilty to distributing Sibutramine, a Schedule IV non-narcotic controlled substance. Hu is scheduled to be sentenced on April 28, 2011.
According to court documents, over the course of December 2008 through March of 2009, the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a series of alerts on its website concerning tainted weight loss pills and counterfeit drugs. Initial alerts focused on “Superslim,” “2 Day Diet,” and Meitzitang, among other purported weight loss products believed to having been imported from China and being marketed as dietary supplements or nutritional products.
The FDA warned in these initial alerts that the items posed a very serious health risk to consumers, because, based on analysis, they were found to be drugs that contained undeclared active pharmaceutical ingredients, including Sibutramine (a non-narcotic controlled substance).
The ingredient Sibutramine can cause high blood pressure, seizures, tachycardia, palpitations, heart attack or stroke. In later alerts, FDA warned the public about counterfeit versions of the brand name drug Alli, a popular over-the-counter weight loss drug manufactured by GlaxoSmithKlein.
over agents told Zhou that they had access to a private customs broker who would be willing to import the counterfeit Alli into the United States through air cargo shipments that would be mis-described.
As the investigation continued undercover agents and Zhou agreed to meet in Hawaii to discuss increasing the order for counterfeit Alli. At that meeting Zhou provided proof that he was capable of producing large quantities of Alli, and that he had cured certain imperfections. At the end of the meeting agents handed Zhou cash to complete the Alli order transaction. At that point, Zhou was arrested.
A number of consumers reported feeling an assortment of adverse physical effects from taking the counterfeit Alli that they had purchased from the defendant’s web page or through a re-distributor. One consumer, an emergency room doctor, suffered a mild stroke after ingesting the counterfeit Alli.
Zhou faces a maximum penalty of ten years imprisonment, a $250,000 fine, and restitution for the counterfeit goods offense to which he has pled guilty.
Hu faces maximum penalty of five years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine for the distribution offense to which she has pled guilty.