What if the Medication that was Supposed to Keep you Alive was Actually Killing You?

In a chilling new book Roger Bate blows the whistle on what could be America’s greatest health crisis.

“Phake: The Deadly World of Falsified and Substandard Medicines” reveals how ruthless criminals penetrate the pharmaceutical market worldwide with medicines that don’t work—or even worse—with medicines that kill.

Just in the last few months, another dangerous fake drug made its way into the United States—a bogus version of the cancer drug Avastin surfaced in clinics across America in California, Illinois, and Texas.

In a shocking new book, Phake: The Deadly World of Falsified and Substandard Medicines, AEI Scholar Roger Bate reveals how far-reaching the deadly business of counterfeit drugs has really become.

Counterfeit drugs kill over 100,000 people per year—and may indirectly cause the death of nearly 1 million patients. Most patients—and even some experts—cannot tell fake medicines from the real deal.

With Americans filling 3.6 billion prescriptions each year and 80% of the ingredients in those drugs coming from countries like Egypt, India, and China, where creating and selling substandard ingredients and counterfeit medicines is not combated effectively, you can’t afford to ignore this story!

In Phake, Bate delves into the odious and poorly-understood trade, tracking criminal networks that span multiple continents and unearthing fake and poor-quality drugs from China, India, Nigeria, Brazil, and even the US. He discovers medicines for deadly diseases that contain flour, chalk, paint thinner, and in some cases, poisons.

In Phake, Bate documents the shocking truth about widespread atrocities, such as:

• How DEG (a toxin proven to be fatal but used by lazy manufacturers because of its sweet taste and cheaper cost) killed at least 750 people in ten countries. Most of the victims were young children between the ages of two months and six years—all died of kidney failure and liver damage.
  
• How 149 Americans died after being injected with counterfeit heparin, a commonly used blood thinning medication.
  
• How in Niger, 50,000 people received fake meningitis medication, and 2,500 of them died as a result.
  
• How 4 tons of fake medicine was confiscated from at least 7 storage facilities in Syria, leading to arrests in Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and China.
 
• How fake drugs could be used in an international act of terrorism on U.S. citizens—with catastrophic effect.
  
• How fake drugs plague many third world countries—even your donation to charities targeting major illnesses like HIV and malaria could be contributing to deaths of the very people you are trying to help.

Roger Bate also draws much needed attention to other growing fake drug threats in the U.S., such as:

• How an alarming number of women continuously put themselves in danger by purchasing diet and fitness drugs over the Internet from unlicensed sellers.
  
• How an increasing number of men are put at risk by buying drugs over the internet they think are Viagra, but are in fact potentially lethal copies.

Roger Bate can explain how to lower your risk when buying on the web, advice that could just save your life, or that of a loved one.

With at least a hundred thousand lives at stake every year, the humanitarian case for action is imperative; with our families and loved ones at risk, the threat simply can no longer be ignored. Phake provides specific policy recommendations that will make our medicine supply more trustworthy, and save thousands of lives every year around the globe.

For more information onPhake or to schedule an interview with Roger Bate,please contact: Marshall, Nappi & Schulz Publicity:

Gwen Nappi, (703) 329-4836 or gwen@mnspublicity.com

Kathleen Sweetapple, (202) 355-5817or Kathleen@mnspublicity.com

Stephanie Marshall, (202) 487-3393 or stephanie@mnspublicity.com