The Last Run: A Counterfeit Story

Counterfeiting medicine is a heinous crime. The perpetrators of these crimes prey on unsuspecting, often ill, people. The victims of these crimes can receive their medications from an online source, a corner pharmacy, or a national pharmacy chain. The victims are like you and like me. Not only do the victims not get the medicine prescribed for them, but they could potentially get something hazardous to their health. It happens on a daily basis around the world, and it happened to me.

In 2000, I was diagnosed with HIV Wasting Syndrome. I failed on initial treatments and was eligible for a form of human growth hormone. My insurance company approved a 12-month supply. I injected the medicine every day, and it worked.

After six months, I developed a stinging sensation at the injection site. This had not happened before. I also noticed a few other slight changes. The package appeared a darker shade of blue. The powder, usually looking like a white powder pellet in the bottom of the vial, appeared to have broken apart. None of this was alarming, but I made a mental note to ask the pharmacist.

A month later, I asked for the pharmacist and explained what was going on. He told me I may have gotten some counterfeit medicine. He explained the medicine had been recalled.

I carefully inspected my remaining medicine and packaging, and sorted it into three piles. Assuming the medicine I picked up that day was authentic, I had two piles of something else. I called the manufacturer and was told there was only one batch of counterfeit, but to take it all back. I didn’t.

After methodically re-checking each package, I was still convinced I had two different counterfeits. The vials and packaging were the only evidence that proved this had happened to me. I went to my doctor, and she said we needed to find out what I had injected and if it was dangerous. No one had an answer. I became consumed, wondering about what was in those vials, why I had two different sets of vials, and what I had done to myself by injecting inauthentic medicine.

It turns out I injected hCG—a hormone women make when they are pregnant. It was another three months until a second batch of counterfeit, my unexplained second pile, was acknowledged and identified. It most likely was produced somewhere overseas.

In my case, the counterfeit growth hormone was handled by a number of companies, including a company licensed to distribute pharmaceuticals in the state of Florida and run by the Walkers, a couple known as William and Elenore Walker who ran drug wholesaling businesses under various names. The company they were operating at the time was called Rekcus—“sucker” spelled backward.

The Walkers would acquire outdated medicines and re-label them with new expiration dates; take lower doses and relabel them as higher, more expensive doses; and make what appeared to be medicine from whatever they had available.

The Walkers were just two of a large, organized, international, and growing group of counterfeiters. We need to be careful and make it more difficult for the bad people to do what they do. We also need to do a better job of educating people. Law enforcement needs to know what to look for, and healthcare professionals need to consider when a drug doesn’t work, it may be fake. We, as consumers, need to know this can happen and to check if we notice something different about our prescriptions. A package with a little darker color or a slightly different print should be considered suspicious. A pill with a different taste or a new shape could mean nothing or it could mean you were given a fake. Now I check everything before leaving the pharmacy.

I wonder how many other people got one or both batches of counterfeit growth hormone like I did. Most people will have consumed the suspected drug and thrown away the packaging.

I wonder how many people just starting growth hormone therapy back in 2000 had similar problems. It probably would not surprise healthcare providers—sometimes real medicines do not work. No one would suspect they were getting a fake. I didn’t. What if they were injecting a counterfeit drug like I was, but unlike me, by the time they received the real drug, it was too late? We will probably never know. This is why I tell my story. pP

Rick Roberts teaches in the Department of Communication -Studies and in the Department of Performing Arts and Social Justice at the University of San Francisco. Roberts is an activist in the area of safe medicines and is specifically concerned with the threat of counterfeit medicines in the U.S. In his efforts to educate the public about this issue, he has been interviewed by various media including ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, NPR, The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.