With an average revenue intake of between $3,000 and $10,000 per day, spammers are eager to put Viagra into the mailboxes of as many people as possible.
Many online pharmacies are selling sildenafil citrate, the active component of Viagra, a medicine used to treat erectile dysfunction (ED). The product they receive doesn't come from Pfizer, the makers of Viagra.
These websites often promote "Viagra" but send the consumer counterfeit drug. Some sites promote "generic Viagra" or "generic sildenafil citrate".
Pfizer says there is no such things as a generic version of its product, because no other company is licensed to sell sildenafil citrate.
According to a recent study published in Britain, researchers purchased Viagra from several seemingly reputable Internet sources. They received what looked like branded Viagra, identically packaged like the real product. The sources of the pills were worldwide and included places like Thailand, India and Malta. The content of sildenafil was determined using near infrared microscopy.
Nearly half of the pills contained no active ingredient.
Sales of counterfeit Viagra and "generic" erectile dysfunction medications are largely driven through spam that promotes the purchase of these products. The entire profit is split between the online pharmacy and the spammer therefore making it one of the most profitable business opportunities for these so-called affiliates. "When all our relays are working, I make up to $15,000 in one day, " said one spammer.
An investigative researcher for Impotence Magazine posed as an online pharmacy selling Viagra. By the end of the investigation, over forty prospective affiliates replied who wanted to sell the product via the high traffic generated by spam.
The investigator for Impotence Magazine also posed as a spammer by posting messages on Web sites for affiliate programs and received eight proposals from "bulk-friendly" online pharmacies. Currently, the two online pharmacies generating the most traffic from spam are "Health Suite" and "Human Nature". They provide affiliates with numerous throw-away domain names owned by the same company that are designed to protect the Web site if a Web host decides to shut down one of the domains. All traffic is then shunted to the remaining domain names, ensuring uninterrupted spamming. In fact, the above mentioned sites have been spamming uninterrupted for over six months.
So-called "affiliate providers" have been paying off Web hosts and abuse administrators in China and other countries for years. One Affiliate Manager even guaranteed that the abuse administrator at their hosting company assures uninterrupted service in spite of complaints made.
Pfizer, in a move to thwart counterfeit Viagra, five million of which were seized by US authorities last year, began on 15 December to affix special radio frequency identification (RFID) tags on all US packages of its pill to verify they are the authentic Pfizer product. The world's biggest drugmaker said the new technology, which is difficult and costly to duplicate, would create barriers "for criminals who might attempt to counterfeit our products."
Counterfeiters are organized criminals who exploit blind spots in the pharmaceutical supply chain for profit. They tend to operate as decentralized groups. Some groups have insider relationships at smaller distributors near the point of transfer to the consumer. They focus on selling the fake drugs. Other groups have access to the raw and packaging materials and focus on creating fakes. These groups can operate domestically or far outside US borders and often have deal-driven relationships that change frequently. They represent "hard targets" for companies and agencies looking to stop them.
The World Health Organization estimates that between five and 10 percent of world pharmaceuticals are counterfeit, with as much as 25 percent in Third World markets.
In inspecting 1,153 shipments of drugs into the US, the FDA and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recently found that 88% contained unapproved and potentially harmful goods; China is considered by the US Customs department to be, by far, the worst offender of exporting counterfeit products.
Types of counterfeit drugs
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines counterfeit drugs as medicines that are deliberately and fraudulently mislabelled with respect to their identities, ingredients and/or sources. There are four basic types of pharmaceutical counterfeits, each presenting unique challenges in terms of detection and response:
-- Identical Copies: the least common counterfeits are made with the same ingredients, formulas and packaging as originals, but not by the original manufacturer;
-- Look-alikes: featuring high-quality packaging and convincing appearances, look-alikes contain little or no active ingredients and may be made with harmful substances;
-- Rejects: actual drugs that have been rejected by the manufacturer for not meeting quality standards;
-- Re-labels: typically, these authentic drugs have passed their expiration dates or been distributed by unauthorized foreign sources, and may also include placebos created for late-phase clinical trials.
According to the FDA, drug counterfeiters defraud consumers by selling products that resemble legitimate drugs but may contain inactive or incorrect ingredients; contain improper doses of active ingredients; or be otherwise contaminated. Other risks and consequences of purchasing ED products online from illegitimate websites may include:
-- Fake or "generic" ED drugs may be manufactured in unregulated factories, often in regions of the world that do not share the same rigorous standards for pharmaceutical manufacturing applied in the U.S.
-- The drugs may contain dangerous additives
-- The illegal drugs may not work as claimed, or at all
-- Illegitimate pharmacies may take payment but not ship ordered products, or shipped products may be seized by the U.S. government because they are illegal
-- Websites that distribute counterfeit ED pills, including "generic Viagra", have been found to abuse credit card information
Note: It can be dangerous to get any drug over the Internet without a physical examination from your doctor including Viagra online. Do not use an Internet pharmacy that offers an online diagnosis for erictile dysfunction or any other condition. Pfizer does not sell Viagra over the Internet directly. If your doctor decides to prescribe Viagra for you, there are a handful of reputable online pharmacies. These are major, trustworthy pharmacy operations that sell drugs only if you have a prescription. Only your doctor knows if Viagra is right for you.
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