Imagine the outcry if 500 people in a developed country such as the US or UK died after being given a fake medicine. Then consider that in the early 1990s a similar number of children died of kidney failure in India, Haiti, Bangladesh and Nigeria after taking fake paracetamol syrup contaminated with a toxic solvent. Barely anyone noticed bar their families and a few doctors.
Their deaths represent just one documented case of a trade in illicit pharmaceuticals that claims countless lives each year. Victims, mostly among the world’s poorest, unwittingly buy fake medicines that often contain toxic substances or…
