Lack of drug regulation in
countries throughout the world is leading to the use of fake drugs. The World
Health Organization has stated that there are countries, in fact 1/3, that have
not placed regulations on medication. Tobacco is another substance that has
been known to have fake contents distributed. A protocol has been put into
place for tobacco that would track the tobacco products with a serial number to
make sure that there is no distribution of fake tobacco. The article mentions
that there should be a tracking number on medications, just like the tobacco,
so that there would be the ability to track the correct medications. This protocol
would decrease the likelihood of fake medications being used. In poorer countries
the distribution of fake drugs is much more prominent than in the richer
countries. With fake drugs being used, many people paying for treatments are
not getting what they pay for and are inevitably dying without treatment. In
places that have high cases of malaria there will be a higher death rate from
the disease because one in ten of the treatment drugs are fake. In the United
States there have been sixteen deaths dealing with meningitis because of faulty
drugs as well.
These
fake drugs are causing very preventable deaths. If these poor countries were
able to receive full treatments with none of them being faked then it would
save many lives. I feel that tracking these medications would help out
tremendously in making sure that the people are getting what they pay for. I
have read a few articles that mention how many poorer countries often have a
hard time trusting the drugs that they are given and now I see as to why they
have this doubtful nature. These medicines are lacking the active ingredient
and I find this to be absolutely horrible that they are being distributed to
the public. I hope that this tracking can go into effect because these
medications are much more important than making sure that tobacco is not faked.
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