Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare

Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare
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Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare
Fraudulent marketing and counterfeit prescription of drugs is one of the most serious corporate crimes in the society today. Unlike other corporate crimes like bribery, environmental pollution, dumping of substandard products in the market and exploitation of workers, counterfeit prescription has far more reaching effects than the mere violation of ethical laws. Counterfeit prescription of drugs is not only unethical because it involves the marketing of products under false labels (false claims of treating certain diseases and conditions), but also exposes unknowing users to other harmful side effects. But more worrying is the public deception upon which counterfeit prescriptions are marketed to consumers. A case in point is the scandal involving the Swiss drug manufacturer Novartis, which in 2010 was fined $423 million for the illegal promotion and selling of five drugs that the company falsely claimed could treat psychiatric conditions. With reference to the illegal marketing practices of Novartis, this essay discusses the dangers of counterfeit prescriptions as one of the most serious corporate crimes in society today.
In 2010, Novartis, a Swiss multinational manufacturer of medical drugs, admitted to charges of having illegally marketed Trileptal for the treatment of psychiatric conditions and pain relieve from acute pain (Gotzsche, 2012). Although the drug is approved by the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of epilepsy and partial seizures, it has not been tested for the treatment of psychiatric uses or for pain management. However, the company's promotion presented the drug as ideal for psychiatric use, in violation of the FDA regulations. FDA prohibits drug manufacturers and marketers against promoting and selling of products under uses other than those for which the product was approved. In addition, the company was accused of paying medical professionals huge kickbacks to prescribe five other drugs, including Diovan (for hypertension treatment) and Zelnorm (for constipation and painful bowel movement), although these drugs had been banned from the market by the US FDA in 2007 after they were attributed to cardiovascular toxicity (Gotzche, 2012).
The problem of counterfeit prescription is a serious one because of the size of the pharmaceutical industry. Most drug manufacturers are multinational corporations, which allows them to market and sell their products to a large consumer base. The globalization of the pharmaceutical industry is particularly more problematic in poor countries where multinationals can easily dump substandard and counterfeit drugs (Newton, Green, & Fernández, 2010). When a multinational company like Novartis deceives the public about the medical uses of a drug, it has the potential of affecting a lot of people. The scope of this problem is better illustrated by the findings of a World Health Organization (WHO), which shows that as much as over 7 percent of the drugs supplied in most third world countries are sold under false prescriptions, and are responsible for thousands of deaths (WHO, 2014). Of-label promotion of medical drugs has the added risk of worsening a patient's condition. This is because patients who buy the drug are denied the opportunity to seek relevant medication. Meanwhile, they continue to take ineffective medication whilst their condition is worsening because the drug does not treat their illness in the first place. Moreover, the prescription of counterfeit drugs can result in allergic reactions, incorrect dosages, and dangerous drug reactions (Canadian Generic Pharmaceutical Association, 2014). This is a blatant violation of ethical business practices because in addition to duping consumers to buy products that do not serve the needs of the consumers, it can lead to unexpected side effects. In the case of Novartis, the drug is only tested and approved for the treatment of partial seizures, and not psychiatric conditions or pain management. The company's action placed many consumers suffering from psychiatric conditions at risk by selling them a drug that could not only treat their symptoms, but which also prevented them from seeking helpful medical attention. At the same time, the deceptive promotion of a medical drug can result in more harm if it results in the drug's adoption by care programs (Government of Canada, 2010). Care givers and medical professionals do not carry out lab tests of a drug before prescribing it to patients. Instead, they rely on the pharmacological information supplied by manufactures to decide under what conditions it can be prescribed for use. Novartis's actions represent a situation where the company managed to dupe the whole healthcare sector by marketing its drugs under false claims of the conditions they can treat. In this regard, counterfeit marketing and prescription of medical drugs has a negative impact on healthcare practices by putting a wrong medical drug in the market, and indicating that it treats conditions that it does not (Nelson, Vizurraga, & Chang, 2006). Medical professionals in healthcare facilities can unwittingly endanger the lives of patients by administering medications that do not have any positive effect on the patients' conditions. The delay to receive appropriate medication can result in death in cases that could otherwise have been managed effectively if the doctors used a different drug instead.
The involvement of medical professionals in the promotion of falsely indicated drugs is the second source of concern for the healthcare sector. Novartis was also accused of bribing doctors, physicians, and pharmacists to prescribe Trileptal and other five drugs manufactured by the company (U.S. Dept. of Justice, 2010). This situation...