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British medical authorities have launched an internal investigation after the theft of unsafe drugs for common diseases in Italian hospitals, their sale to British pharmacies and their possibly affected patients.
Mafia-related criminal gangs infiltrated the NHS supply chain in 2014, which resulted in the importation of prescription drugs for prostate cancer, epilepsy and schizophrenia in the United States. United Kingdom.
According to a Channel 4 Dispatches survey, more than 10,000 stolen drug units arrived in the United Kingdom in 2014, with four types of dangerous drugs sold in pharmacies.
The drugs were not counterfeit, but since they spent time outside the regulated supply chain, they were clbadified as "falsified." The Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which had not alerted the general public at the time, said that in its view, the risk to the public health was low since it was legitimate medicine.
However, during a review of its 2014 investigation into stolen drug reports sold in the UK, the regulator found that the records pertaining to the investigation were incomplete, which has led to an internal review to ensure that it was properly protecting the regulated supply chain.
"In 2014, as a result of information on drugs stolen in Italy and sold in the UK, we opened an investigation and ensured that products marketed in the UK market were safe," said Ian Hudson. , Director General of the MHRA. "We received this information more than a year after the robberies.
"In addition to this case, the MHRA has only seized falsified drugs nine times in the regulated supply chain over the last decade, and there is no indication that these drugs have been delivered. to patients. "
A well-known chain of street pharmacies would have stored and prescribed drugs to be named Monday by Dispatches.
The first indication that the stolen Italian medicines had entered the UK supply chain occurred in March 2014, when a German pharmaceutical wholesaler bought bad cancer drugs that were discovered altered and become ineffective.
The Italian regulatory body investigated a number of major thefts between 2011 and 2014, during which thousands of essential drugs for serious illnesses disappeared, before eventually entering the drug chains. Official medical supply in Europe.
It is understood that the MHRA has written to wholesalers asking them to ensure that the affected products do not enter the supply chain, to quarantine these drugs if necessary and to contact those who are They provided by asking them to do the same.
The MHRA does not hold any prescribing data and has no direct evidence that patients received these medications. However, he acknowledged that "it is possible that some of these drugs will reach the level of the patient."
Former Liberal Democrat Health Minister Norman Lamb has called for reconsideration. "First of all, people need to know that they may have received drugs using an illegal route, "he said. "And what I find extraordinary is that there was no opening on it."
All drugs in the UK carry a unique barcode since February 2019, which allows them to be authenticated after the MHRA implements the EU directive on falsified medicines.
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