Ignorance can kill: we must act together!

Unlike many other forms of international trafficking, the illegal sale of fake medicines is fed by one major element that allows it to proliferate on every continent: the lack of information.

In this vast fools’ game, in which patients are in fact victims rather than accomplices, ignorance of the extent of the problem is the very basis of its rapid spread. When information is lacking, patients tend to engage in risky behaviour by buying their medicines outside the safe distribution circuits.

Information as a means of increasing awareness

One of the missions of IRACM – through this website in general and this section aimed specifically at the general public – is to put an end to this ignorance, to tackle it at source by providing information about the nature, the danger and the scope of the threat.

• How and why does this traffic develop?
• What is at stake?
• What means, technology or precautions, can we implement to limit the risks that weigh on us as consumers of medicines?
• Should we avoid buying medicines on Internet or are there sufficiently reliable ways of safeguarding the market?
• Are vaccines or veterinary products falsified as much as other categories of medicines?

These are some of the practical, yet very highly documented, questions that we will be addressing in this section.

Please take the time to read this information, copy and paste it, blog it, tweet it and pass it on to your family and friends by sending them a link to our website.

The easier it is to gain access to this information, the harder the task for the traffickers – and the more lives will be saved!