"Phake: The Deadly World of Falsified and Substandard Medicines" explores the underground trade in illegal medicines that kills over 100,000 people per year and supplants billions of dollars of real products.

While counterfeits must be combated, drugs that are legally but poorly produced, substandard medicines-the subject of today's briefing-tend to get a free pass, even when they kill.

The U.S. is not immune to lethal failings in the quality of pharmaceutical drugs. With little realistic oversight, and more importantly, little ethos of business integrity in China, a major tragedy in the U.S. from a Chinese export is likely in the near future.

Government agencies, the pharmaceutical industry, and humanitarian organizations must work together to stamp out counterfeit drugs.

Substandard and counterfeit drugs can be lethal to patients and accelerate drug resistance across at-risk populations.

The United States and the European Union need to make sensible policy changes to reduce the likelihood of future counterfeit drug tragedies.

Today, nearly 80 percent of active pharmaceutical ingredients originate outside the United States. But the FDA cannot adequately oversee the safety of chemicals manufactured overseas and imported into the United States.