With fakes of the cancer drug Avastin popping up in U.S. clinics in the past few months, patients are naturally worried about whether their medicines are safe.  Considering eighty percent of the ingredients in U.S. medicines come from overseas – mostly from China and India because their products are generally...

With 100,000 patients dying every year from dangerous medicines, it is time to take concrete actions. Establishing a treaty against fake medicines should be the first step.

Ineffective drugs take lives, waste money and make precious cures useless. Drugs have been recycled after their expiry date; they have been contaminated with fatal toxins; they have been made too weak or with no active ingredient at all.

The FDA must continue to pressure Chinese authorities to test what is on the market and remove any substandard products found.

Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez has tried for 10 months to conceal the fact that he is losing his bout with cancer, determined to appear in command of his revolutionary regime and the nation's future. So why isn't anyone outside Venezuela paying attention?

Failing to distinguish between licensed online pharmacies (Canadian or otherwise), which require a valid prescription and sell safe medications, and rogue online pharmacies, which sell lethal fake medicines or flout prescription requirements, means poor patients have less information to make good choices about the drugs they require.

The reality is that we simply do not know how efficacious most  drugs really are. 

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.