Date Line NBC "Bitter Pills" Documentary

[DeathEmpr]

I was wondering did anyone else catch Dateline's NBC documentary "Bitter Pills," Sunday night? The documentary is done by Chris Hansen from the "How to catch a Predator" segment on Dateline for NBC. This new documentary exposes counterfiet pills made in other countries which is easily getting distributed to heavily health issued countries like the U.S, England, etc...These pills are created all around the world but most are coming from places like China. The documentary shows Chris Hansen going undercover in China and gets interviewed by a woman that "says," she works for a major factory which creates these exact replicas of pills from viagra to lipitor. He arranges a fake bussiness meeting with her and her assistant to get information on how they're sneeking these pills to major world countries, what are the ingredients for these fake pills, and how much they can ship in a whole day. These fake pills are cleverly packaged to be an exact replica of the real medicines, like for instance same packages these pills are sent in, same patent number, etc... Even pharmaceutical experts can't tell these pills apart from the fake to the real. It's messed up how they're getting these fakes into the country in actual pharmacies like CVS and the stuff they're making these pills out of are outrages, one in fact is actual dry wall. A lot of families already had death cases leading up to these controversies and it's really sad how most of these cases are being dealt with. Well, just wanted to know if anyone else saw this documentary as well, or if you have any opinions to output about the issue, be my guest.

 

[darkpikachu02]

The Chinese are known for widespread counterfeiting. You can go to a street market in China and find a cheaper counterfeit version of any product you want. Most of these counterfeit pills are from China. We have been having a lot of problems with products from China lately. We need to stop dealing with China when it comes down to things that we put into our bodies.
Ben

 

[Talon87]

I saw the same documentary but couldn't help shaking the feeling that it was American propaganda meant to turn us inward towards our own markets and away from foreign markets. I mean, Chinese business practices have not changed drastically between now and August 2005 (the dragon's been rumbling for a few years now), yet in the last six months, the U.S. media has been flooded with stories about poisonous Chinese consumption products (e.g. foods, medicines).

Am I saying China doesn't counterfeit? Hell no. Of course they do. But I think we must not forget just how many counterfeit druggists there are operating within the United States. I mean, do you think most of the Cialis and Viagra spam e-mails you get come from China? Hell no, they come from Alabama, California, New Hampshire, Illinois ... name any state in the continental US and you'll probably find somebody running an illegal pharmacy offering to sell prescription drugs at discount prices. When really all they are are sugar pills or paint thinner.

But yeah, the story did break my heart when they went to Pfizer's labs and analyzed all of those fake pills. Diabetes pill -- "it's just sugar." :| That's sickly ironic. And then the blood pressure pills, too, were nothing but powdered metals. It was ridiculous, to think that so many people are bridging the gap between theft (via fraud) and murder (via fraud).

 

[KoalaDevourer]

There's a funny story amongst the Chinese.

A man is depressed and decides to commit suicide. So he goes to a store and buys some Chinese rat poison. He eats it, but doesn't die. He sees it as a sign from heaven that he should live, so he decides to go drinking. After drinking the Chinese beer, he dies.

Basically, the idea is that the rat poison was counterfeit, so he didn't die. But the beer was counterfeit, so he did die. Strange story. Possibly true. The exact story probably isn't though.

 

[Talon87]

Wow. lol I can just see it now ...

Chinese guy: What the hell is this?
Chinese bookstore owner: What?
Guy: It says here "Rumance of the Tree Kingdoms."
Bookstore owner: Yeah? So?

 

[DeathEmpr]

I also agree the media in the last year or half a year has been popping out a lot of Chinese materials in being unhealthy or counterfiet. There are also so many people in the U.S that too are making these fake replicas of the real things, but what makes me going is that even if they do make these pills, how the hell are they able to sneak in these pills into local pharmacies. I know the counterfeiting business these days take lots of precautions in making making plus distributing these pills like the real thing, but you would think by now we have the technology to seperate the real things from the duds. Don't get me wrong, we do have the technology, but it isn't catching or getting noticed by these big named pharmacies that should get more involved with this issue. I also do understand that the technology cost a lot of money to apply into the packages, but this is something I believe it's totally neccesary in this day of age.

 

[evkl]

A simple chemical analysis will be able to tell the difference between, say, Prosac and Tylenol, or any other drugs.

 

[DeathEmpr]

Yeah, even then though, you don't see pharmacist even validating if any of them are fake or not. Usually they think the pills are legitate, so they sell them how it is.