Traveling through the world of fake drugs (Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent)

[Guest guest]

If you didn't watch it tonight you missed a good show. I am sure they will have it on again. Meanwhile, here are a couple of links that will tell you about the scary possibility of getting counterfeit meds when you fill your RX's.

• June 2, 2006 | 11:10 a.m. ET

Traveling through the world of fake drugs (Hansen, Dateline correspondent)

I have three basic rules for doing investigative reporting in countries where governments frown on this sort of activity: get in quietly, get out quickly and make sure the video tapes make it back to New York.

In the case of our investigation into the world of counterfeit medicine we were fortunately able to accomplish all three. We had heard from people in federal law enforcement and major drug companies that the production of counterfeit medicine is exploding in places like China, Pakistan and India just to name a few.

About a year ago, we decided to try to turn our hidden cameras on this subject and now we’re going to take you along as we see first hand how counterfeit medicines can be smuggled into the U.S. without detection and perhaps even more alarming, how they could end up in your neighborhood pharmacy.

We posed as a company called The Hansen Group and started trolling the Internet looking for suppliers of counterfeit medicines. Within weeks, companies all over the world began offering us everything from fake Viagra to knock off Tamiflu, the drug that would be the first line of defense during a bird-flu pandemic. The supply line took us all the way to Hong Kong, where in a modern hotel room outfitted with hidden cameras, we met with a woman who told us she was a major player in this illicit business. Even we were surprised when the woman, who called herself Cherry Wong, agreed to ship us thousands of fake Viagra tablets a week, a deal that could be worth $10 million.

Pfizer, which makes Viagra tested some of Cherry’s product and found it to be, in fact, counterfeit, although it did contain some active ingredient.

It is an eye-opening investigation and personally alarming to see how much counterfeiting is going on. These drugs can obviously be very dangerous on many different levels.

And while you might think that by avoiding buying medicine over the Internet you can protect yourself, think again. As you’ll see in our story, medicine doesn’t usually go straight from the factory to the pharmacy. There is a complex network of wholesalers who buy and sell surplus drugs. In some cases, all it takes is some phony paper work and some realistic packaging for fake medicine to slip into the system.

The report on counterfeit drugs airs Sunday, 7 p.m. June 4, on Dateline NBC. Click here for more info, resources on fake drugs.

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

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032600/