Headline Sep23,2012/ "THE DEADLY AGENTS OF FAKE MEDICINE!"

"THE DEADLY AGENTS OF FAKE MEDICINE!"

Despite his intimidating bodyguards and crew cut, Gabriel Zhang's table conversation is surprisingly highminded.

''What's your favorite passage from the Bible?'' he asks and then quickly adds, ''Mine is Matthew:26:41 --'The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.' He is a devout Catholic, who doesn't smoke or drink, and the 32 years old describes himself as an ''honest businessman''.

Others, however, the world over view him as an international criminal and a potentially deadly deadly menace.The bitterest sweet pill is that Zhang is one of the growing breed of ''entrepreneurs'' mass producing counterfeit pharmaceutical drugs in China, then distributing them in the UK, Europe and the United States

The setting of this conversation is found 140km south of Beijing in the city of Baoding,the themed eatery is bedecked with Chairman Mao posters and the waitresses are dressed as Red Guards. If Quentin Tarantino wanted to film a rendezvous with a Chinese Dealer in Fake Drugs, then the Revolutionary Tradition Restaurant is exactly the location he'd choose.

And little does Zhang suspect, that the person posing as a buyer, is in fact a highly respected journalist 'under cover'. One of the key sources of intelligence about fake drugs is the pharmaceutical companies themselves, which employ their own small team of undercover detectives. Evidence of their work was seen in the case Muhammed Azim Dad.who ended up in court some years ago after Agents from the US drugs form Eli Lilly caught him red handed selling counterfeits from his home in Slough, UK.

Azim Dad was buying fake versions of the Eli Lilly trademarked Cialis from a source in China and selling it on eBay for pound 4 a tablet. The 31 year old pleaded guilty to selling an estimated pound 20,000 worth of the pills. Pfizer which makes some very important drugs, is understood to have the largest anticounterfeit team, with over 40 people working on combating the fakers.

Pfizer has successfully intercepted fake drugs in Hungary, a hypertension drug, Norvasc, in Canada, that turned out to be made out of talc. And an anti inflammatory drug, Ponstan, in Colombia, that contained potentially lethal boric acid and had its distinctive yellow color imitated by the addition of road paint. Among the company's souvenirs is a photograph of a Cement Mixer being used to dye fake drugs at a crude counterfeiting factory in Egypt. ''We are aware that in the UK, we are increasingly being targeted by criminal counterfeiters,'' a Pfizer spokeswoman declared.''We have a global team of security specialists. One of their key roles is to crackdown on these criminal gangs.''

So the bottom line warning to all the students is to observe great care and vigilance.For whether it's Aspirin or any other Drug or pill that you are popping could contain anything from arsenic to brick dust. From its roots in part of the world, the counterfeit Trade is now Global, and its leaving a deadly trail in its wake.

With many many thanks to !WOW! 

Good Night and God Bless!