Dive Brief:
- During the week of May 13-May 20, the Food and Drug Administration collaborated with other federal and international agencies to crack down on Web sites that sell unapproved prescription drugs to U.S. consumers.
- US Customs and Border Patrol helped FDA conduct extensive searches at international mail facilities throughout the U.S.
- Most of the packages they identified contained a variety of illegal prescription drugs from different countries.
Dive Insight:
One of the initiatives undertaken during week involved a large-scale collaboration between authorities from 111 countries and the FDA to intercept packages of illegal prescription drugs purchased online. During their searches at international mail facilities, as well as facilities in Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago, enforcement officials found more than 20,000 packages containing illegal prescription drugs.
The drug products they found included insulin, estrogen, bimatoprost, human chorionic gonadotropin, tramadol, tadalafil and sildenafil citrate. Packages were shipped in from countries that included India, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Mexico, Laos, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. FDA is committed to continuing to crack down on illegal online sales of prescription products, citing major concerns about counterfeit products, credit card fraud and identity theft.