INTERPOL - World Model United Nations

and international trade organizations such as INTERPOL,
counterfeit drug production still causes an unnecessarily
high level of morbidity, mortality, and loss of faith in
traditional medicine and health structures. Not only is
quality compromised when pharmaceuticals are illicitly
produced, but safety becomes a major concern as well.
Products are stored in unsatisfactory conditions such as
insucient or excessive light, pressure, humidity, and
temperature. Nevertheless, there is a generally trusting
attitude from customers of counterfeit pharmaceuticals
who believe the medical advice dealers provide– a faith
that can be credited to a lack of education in national
and international health standards or general cultural
norms that create a dangerous level of trust among
ethnic and religious minority groups. 68 Consequences of
consuming or utilizing counterfeit pharmaceuticals can
range from inconvenience to unwanted pregnancies to
fatality, constituting a major public health risk, especially
in developing countries. 69 Ingredients that can be found
in counterfeit drugs include highway paint, oor wax, and
even boric acid. 70 As a result, negative pictures emerge
from around the world: approximately 192,000 people were
estimated to have died in China in 2001 because of fake
drugs. 71 In 2007, a Chinese ocial was even executed for
approving fake medicines. 72
In addition to the direct impact on victims’ health,
substandard medicines can also promote microbial
resistance. As the UN Oce on Drugs and Crime
(UNODC) explains: “Health experts have warned that
each under-medicated patient becomes an evolutionary
vector through which ‘superbugs’ can develop, posing a
global threat to public health.” 73 In other words, by allowing
the disease to fester in the human system untreated or
undertreated by counterfeit drugs, countries inadvertently
provide the germs or viruses that lead to the illness the
necessary time to adapt to existing medicines – prolonging
the disease for many future generations. Oen, important
information about the drug—such as expiration date,
warnings, ingredients, or dosage instructions—is oen
lacking, un- or poorly translated, or even purposely
skewed in order to sell more of the drug. Vendors, oen
uneducated, distribute dosages in arbitrary amounts and
oer the patient no accountability for any injury he or she
sustains from the use of counterfeit drugs. 74 Yet because
the nature of the counterfeit drug industry is so illicit,
consumers frequently receive little assistance or guidance
from healthcare systems that are overwhelmed by the sheer
volume of potential cases arising from the distribution of
counterfeit pharmaceuticals.
Counterfeit drugs also have serious developmental and
economic consequences. In developing countries, they
reduce the protability of region-specic markets, curbing
foreign investment and incentives for pharmaceutical
industries to research diseases endemic to those regions.
75 Because potential prots for new and legitimate drugs
against life-threatening diseases are siphoned o to the
counterfeit industry (which is able to provide lower costs
due to lower quality), global pharmaceutical companies
view developing markets as unable to return the signicant
investment costs required for researching and developing
vaccines and therapies for diseases such as AIDS, malaria,
tuberculosis, and syphilis. As a result, much-needed
research that could potentially save millions of lives each
year goes neglected; health research companies nd their
sales have declined by as much as 30% by some estimates
due to counterfeiting. 76
Counterfeit drugs also squander limited health resources
when health consequences from altered drugs arise,
diverting these resources from other treatment purposes. In
developing countries especially, underfunded and underresourced
healthcare networks are already stretched thin
with their disproportionate share of the global disease
burden; to be additionally strained by a disproportionate
share of international counterfeit pharmaceutical
health consequences spells disaster for the millions of
people battling life-threatening illnesses in the region.
Unfortunately, most of the current literature on counterfeit
drugs comes from local investigative journalism, with
little scientically broad public health inquiry to estimate
the scale to which people are aected. 77 It thus becomes
paramount for INTERPOL to bring this under-discussed
issue to international lens and deliberate on what possible
solutions exist to this burgeoning global industry that
threatens the ght against deathly disease on multiple
fronts.
HISTORY AND DISCUSSION OF THE PROBLEM
Origin Of Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals
The quality and purity of medications have been
counterfeited since antiquity. Fraudulent drugs have
been cited in documents dating back to the fourth century
BC, and the problem of counterfeit medicines has persisted
throughout the centuries. 78 Since medicine is high value
relative to bulk (meaning its price per unit weight or
volume is much higher than other commodities) with
demand being constant at a wide range of prices, there is
huge economic incentive to undergo patent infringement
Harvard WorldMUN 2012 INTERPOL 17