A Sick Business
Counterfeit Medicines and Organised Crime
Graham Satchwell
Published by The Stockholm Network, Great Britain, 2004
ISBN 0 9547663 2 6
As a former detective superintendent and security executive, the author Graham Satchwell is well placed to write a book of this nature, focusing as it does on the criminal aspects of counterfeiting and the significant concerns raised in conjunction with fake and substandard medicines.
More of an investigative paper than a traditional book, this dissertation sets out to confirm that counterfeiting of pharmaceuticals is a global trade conducted by criminals, having already killed thousands of people. It also tries to ascertain how prevalent the problem is with respect to the public inadvertently being exposed to counterfeit medicines, which territories are most at risk and in particular how the United Kingdom is exposed to the problem.
The book provides a detailed, informed and careful review of the situation; how medicines are manufactured, packaged, distributed, re-packaged, dispensed and consumed. It looks at the issues of the European Union, the United States and Canada and other areas of the world supplying and receiving goods. It also highlights the complications of parallel trade, the roles of regulators and government policies as well as the impact of changes in the global markets (such as the expansion of the European Union).
It is an excellent reference for specific cases, relevant economic facts and figures and how terrorism and other organized crimes are inextricably linked (and funded) by trade in counterfeit medicines. It also surprisingly readable given that the book was probably not written with bedtime reading in mind!
Reviewer: Adrian Burden
The Fake Factor
Why we love brands but buy fakes
Sarah McCartney
Published by Marshall Cavandish Business, 2005
ISBN 1-904879-42-X
This book provides a readable overview of the problem of fake products and the extent to which it occurs around the world. It also explores the psyche of the buying public to understand why fakes are purchased and how this varies depending on the types of goods being sought. The author also investigates how different brand owners respond to the problem of counterfeiting, and in some cases how they exacerbate the problem through their actions and business practices. It also looks at how ethics, laws and their interpretation varies from country to country, again creating loopholes that allow the business of manufacturing and selling fake products to flourish.
The book starts by setting the scene and explaining what a brand is, why it is copied, how it is managed and how brands can often be extended and diluted. It then investigates the way in which brands identify with the public, how the public becomes loyal to a brand and in what situations this loyalty breaks down. It focuses, for example, on how consumers behave on holiday or when using the Internet; two occasions when buying fake products readily occurs. Towards the end of the book, the intellectual property laws are explored at a high level, pointing out discrepancies and the grey area between copying and using creativity to produce something similar.
For anyone wanting an easy introduction to the subject, this book is a good choice. The author has written extensively for Lush Times, a newspaper of the Lush Natural Handmade Cosmetics brand, and so has firsthand experience of the importance of a brand and how copies, clones and imposters come along to try to capitalize on the values a brand has developed. Her writing style is accessible and she comes across as well informed, using market research to support her arguments. One gripe I have is the imprint I had clearly had not been proof read; there were missing words and grammatical errors throughout. I’m certain it was a genuine copy of the book, and not a hastily copied fake!
Reviewer: Adrian Burden
Knockoff
The Deadly Trade in Counterfeit Goods
Tim Phillips
Published by Kogan Page Ltd, Great Britain, 2005
ISBN 0 7494 4379 0
If you are going to read one book on the subject of counterfeiting, and leave it at that, this would probably be the one. Knockoff is a comprehensive review of the subject, covering the broad aspects of the problem and not focusing on just one or two sectors. It provides an insight into the extent of the issues and backs this up with numerous examples and anecdotes. There are also plenty of references to the original sources and links to organizations both in Great Britain and around the world.
The book begins with an overview and highlights how the general public comes into contact with fakes and actively engages in the business of buying (and selling) fakes. The book then puts this all in perspective with regards to the global economy, some of the counterfeiting hotspots and the effects on doing legitimate business. This includes looking at examples in China, Russia, Italy and S.E. Asia, and highlights sectors such as fashion, software piracy, spare aircraft parts and medicines.
The book is not simply a narrative of the extent of counterfeiting, but provides specific examples in more detail such as the work being done in Nigeria to prevent counterfeit medicines or the way in which Microsoft tackled piracy in Russia.
Reviewer: Adrian Burden
Dangerous Doses – A true story of cops, counterfeiters, and the contamination of America’s drug supply
Katherine Eban
Published by Harcourt Books
United States, 2005
ISBN 0 15 603085 3
Katherine Eban is an investigative reporter with wide-ranging experience and an impressive portfolio of published articles.
For two-and-a-half-years, she dedicated herself to investigating and reporting on the counterfeit drug industry in the US. In Dangerous Doses, she skilfully interweaves a gripping, blockbuster-like writing style with the historical events surrounding Operation Stone Cold – a massive counterfeit drugs investigation carried out by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Miami-Dade Police Department.
Her story follows the self-dubbed “Horsemen of the Apocalypse” – five investigators who, from 2002 to 2004, penetrated the corruption of America’s drug supply. To heighten dramatic tension and make the text more real, she introduces the reader to these five men and presents them as the real people they are, with a burning passion to wipe out the spreading stain of counterfeit drugs; a sordid industry involving robberies, back-room deals, dirty and unsanitary warehouses, crooked dealers and state and federal law so lax it allows convicted felons to become prescription-drug brokers.
What is most shocking about this book is the realisation it prompts that fake drugs have been making their way into hospitals and over the pharmacist’s counter into the patients’ hands and bodies. And how relatively easy it is for this to happen. We meet Timothy Fagan, a sixteen-year-old New York transplant patient who has received counterfeit Epogen, nearly resulting in his death, and his father Kevin who has met the drugmaker Amgen head on in a bid to find out how his son received Epogen one-twentieth the strength of what appeared on the label. Amongst others, we also meet cancer patient Maxine Blount and recipient of counterfeit Procrit, a medicine that fights anemia by stimulating red blood cell growth.
Katherine Eban is definitely a woman with a mission and by writing and publishing this book she is making a bold statement about the pharmaceutical industry and is challenging the drugmakers, wholesalers, pharmacists and policy-makers to clean up their act and ensure that this doesn’t carry on happening. The bottom line is that some people are making a lot of money out of the counterfeit drug industry and are knowingly selling fake drugs that can cause serious injury or death. Although it makes unnerving reading, Dangerous Doses has the potential to empower and protect anyone who reads it. And the true story it relates makes the counterfeit penicillin pedalled in Graham Greene’s The Third Man look like a fairy story!
Reviewer: Jessica Williams
Gomorrah
Italy’s other Mafia
Roberto Saviano
Published by Pan Macmillan Ltd, Great Britain, 2007
ISBN 978-0-230-01776-4
Of interest here is the link between the organized crime of the Camorra, the Mafia of Naples, and the flow of counterfeit products into Europe from Asia and elsewhere. The book does not dwell on the issue, but does provide some interesting insight into the importance of Naples as a port for this illegitimate trade. It also explains how the products are warehoused and shipped, and how local manufacturers are engaged within the economy to produce fakes and overruns, particularly within the context of the fashion industry.
The narrative, of course, goes much further – describing operations, conflicts and gang warfare. It also describes the other illegitimate economic activities such as drug trafficking and waste disposal. For someone that wants a glimpse of this dangerous underground world that operates in Italy, this is a powerful and indeed controversial book, translated from an originally Italian manuscript.
Reviewer: Adrian Burden