A new NIH study finds that fake and substandard malaria drugs are a growing threat to combat the disease.

American Enterprise Institute (AEI) economist and counterfeit drug expert Roger Bate has tirelessly tracked counterfeit networks that span multiple continents--unearthing fake and poor-quality drugs in China, India, Nigeria, Brazil and even in the United States.

"Our tax dollars for humanitarian efforts are being undermined by poor quality drugs for malaria, and also TB and HIV in Africa and beyond.

If we want our aid to work we need to help these countries improve their drug quality. This will also directly help us, the same Indian and Chinese companies making poor quality antimalarials also make antibiotics and other drugs, which we might buy.

We need enforcement of quality standards to prevent substandard drugs and enforcement of health laws to criminalize faking. There are technical solutions--improved company procurement systems, better auditing, track and trace monitoring and random inspections, but right now we need to alert people to the dangers." – Roger Bate, AEI

Roger Bate is the Legatum Fellow in Global Prosperity at AEI and the author of Phake: The Deadly World of Falsified and Substandard Medicines (AEI Press, May 2012). He is available for interviews and can be reached at rbate@aei.org or through julissa.milligan@aei.org.

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