 |
Year
2007 |
|
Archives
|
|
|
Pfizer: Online pharmacies peddling fake Viagra
BY REGINA MARIE GLICK
Staff Writer
August 4, 2004
Not only is spam that peddles Viagra annoying, but many of the drugs are fakes, too.
So says Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drugmaker, which filed federal lawsuits Monday against five online pharmacies to halt their sale of what it calls counterfeit Viagra.
Pfizer, based in Manhattan, is the only company with Food and Drug Administration approval to sell sildenafil citrate, the chemical name for Viagra, which treats impotence.
"'Generic Viagra' is fake Viagra," said Pfizer spokesman Bryant Haskins.
The associate commissioner for the FDA, William Hubbard, said that counterfeit drugs, such as those marketed as generic Viagra, often contain the wrong levels of active ingredients and sometimes contain dangerous heavy metals such as lead.
Although an underdose of Viagra is not harmful, an overdose can cause heart attack and stroke. Haskins said he was unaware of any American deaths from counterfeit Viagra, but several have occurred in Asia.
The company also moved to seize the domain names of 25 other Web sites that sell the drug by filing complaints with the World Intellectual Property Organization, a United Nations agency dedicated to protecting international patent and copyright laws.
The five Web sites named in the suits were: yousaverx.com, viagraxonline.com, qualitygenerics.com, myrxforless.com, and genericviagrapills.com. None of the online pharmacies could be reached for comment.
"We're not naive enough to believe that these two actions are going to stop all the spam on the Internet or immediately halt all the sites selling illegal or unapproved product," Haskins said. "But we want to let consumers know sites of this type, they should be very wary of and they should be aware of who they're buying from."
The company says it's nearly impossible to tell the difference between counterfeit and real Viagra with the naked eye.
To be sure, Pfizer has enough problems dealing with legitimate competition for Viagra without worrying about fakes.
Last year, Viagra brought Pfizer $1.8 billion in sales. But competition has been heating up with rivals like Cialis, which is made by Eli Lilly and Icos Corp., and Levitra, which is sold by GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Bayer AG.
Haskins said the lawsuit had nothing to do with the increased competition and that his company was primarily concerned that consumers were being unwittingly exposed to dangerous pills.
source :-http://www.nynewsday.com | 
