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...

Knowing where all our ingredients come from is the first step toward improving drug quality.

Until government price controls are lifted, the makers of generics will be unable to cover their production costs.

"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.

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.

3.8 percent of drugs sampled from countries with emerging economies failed basic quality control tests--and these drugs are used to treat potentially lethal infections. Africa has a greater problem with substandard products than any other location.

The federal government is a powerful entity, but try as it might it cannot repeal the laws of supply and demand. So don’t blame the drug makers or the banks; blame the politicians in Washington and their inability to see that price "controls" can’t control the larger market.

Every day patients receive treatments that do not work properly. For many this means no relief from symptoms, but for some death is the result. Yet concerted action against such products is limited. Before we can discuss why that's the case, I will attempt to explain what kind of products don’t work, and what we should call them.