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Public health concerns for anti-obesity medicines imported for personal use through the internet: a cross-sectional study
OBJECTIVE: To explore the circulation of anti-obesity medicines via the internet and their quality. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. SETTING: Internet pharmacies and pharmaceutical suppliers accessible from Japan. PARTICIPANTS: Anti-obesity medicines were purchased using relevant keywords on Japanese...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BMJ Group
2012
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3353131/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22581794 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2012-000854 |
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author | Khan, Mohiuddin Hussain Tanimoto, Tsuyoshi Nakanishi, Yoko Yoshida, Naoko Tsuboi, Hirohito Kimura, Kazuko |
author_facet | Khan, Mohiuddin Hussain Tanimoto, Tsuyoshi Nakanishi, Yoko Yoshida, Naoko Tsuboi, Hirohito Kimura, Kazuko |
author_sort | Khan, Mohiuddin Hussain |
collection | PubMed |
description | OBJECTIVE: To explore the circulation of anti-obesity medicines via the internet and their quality. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. SETTING: Internet pharmacies and pharmaceutical suppliers accessible from Japan. PARTICIPANTS: Anti-obesity medicines were purchased using relevant keywords on Japanese Google search engine. Blogs and advertisement-only sites were excluded. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: The authenticity of the samples was investigated in collaboration with the manufacturers of the samples and medicine regulatory authorities. Quality of the samples was assessed by pharmacopoeial analyses using high-performance liquid chromatography. RESULTS: 82 samples were purchased from 36 internet sites. Approximately half of the sites did not mention a physical address, and 45% of the samples did not contain a package insert. A variety of custom declarations were made for the shipments of the samples: personal health items, supplement, medicines, general merchandise, tea and others. Among 82 samples, 52 samples were analysed to check their pharmacopoeial quality. Authenticity responses were received from only five of 20 manufacturing companies. According to the pharmacopoeial analyses and authenticity investigation, three of the samples were identified as counterfeits and did not contain any active ingredients. Two of these samples were confirmed as counterfeits by the manufacturer of the authentic products. The manufacturer of the other sample did not respond to our request for an authenticity check even after several communication attempts. These counterfeit cases have been reported at the rapid alert system of Western Pacific Region of the WHO. CONCLUSIONS: Many counterfeit and unapproved anti-obesity medicines may be easily bypassing regulatory checks during shipping and are widely circulated through the internet. Regulatory authorities should take measures to prevent these medicines from entering countries to safeguard their citizens. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3353131 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2012 |
publisher | BMJ Group |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-33531312012-05-22 Public health concerns for anti-obesity medicines imported for personal use through the internet: a cross-sectional study Khan, Mohiuddin Hussain Tanimoto, Tsuyoshi Nakanishi, Yoko Yoshida, Naoko Tsuboi, Hirohito Kimura, Kazuko BMJ Open Public Health OBJECTIVE: To explore the circulation of anti-obesity medicines via the internet and their quality. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. SETTING: Internet pharmacies and pharmaceutical suppliers accessible from Japan. PARTICIPANTS: Anti-obesity medicines were purchased using relevant keywords on Japanese Google search engine. Blogs and advertisement-only sites were excluded. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: The authenticity of the samples was investigated in collaboration with the manufacturers of the samples and medicine regulatory authorities. Quality of the samples was assessed by pharmacopoeial analyses using high-performance liquid chromatography. RESULTS: 82 samples were purchased from 36 internet sites. Approximately half of the sites did not mention a physical address, and 45% of the samples did not contain a package insert. A variety of custom declarations were made for the shipments of the samples: personal health items, supplement, medicines, general merchandise, tea and others. Among 82 samples, 52 samples were analysed to check their pharmacopoeial quality. Authenticity responses were received from only five of 20 manufacturing companies. According to the pharmacopoeial analyses and authenticity investigation, three of the samples were identified as counterfeits and did not contain any active ingredients. Two of these samples were confirmed as counterfeits by the manufacturer of the authentic products. The manufacturer of the other sample did not respond to our request for an authenticity check even after several communication attempts. These counterfeit cases have been reported at the rapid alert system of Western Pacific Region of the WHO. CONCLUSIONS: Many counterfeit and unapproved anti-obesity medicines may be easily bypassing regulatory checks during shipping and are widely circulated through the internet. Regulatory authorities should take measures to prevent these medicines from entering countries to safeguard their citizens. BMJ Group 2012-05-11 /pmc/articles/PMC3353131/ /pubmed/22581794 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2012-000854 Text en © 2012, Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non commercial and is otherwise in compliance with the license. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/ and http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/legalcode. |
spellingShingle | Public Health Khan, Mohiuddin Hussain Tanimoto, Tsuyoshi Nakanishi, Yoko Yoshida, Naoko Tsuboi, Hirohito Kimura, Kazuko Public health concerns for anti-obesity medicines imported for personal use through the internet: a cross-sectional study |
title | Public health concerns for anti-obesity medicines imported for personal use through the internet: a cross-sectional study |
title_full | Public health concerns for anti-obesity medicines imported for personal use through the internet: a cross-sectional study |
title_fullStr | Public health concerns for anti-obesity medicines imported for personal use through the internet: a cross-sectional study |
title_full_unstemmed | Public health concerns for anti-obesity medicines imported for personal use through the internet: a cross-sectional study |
title_short | Public health concerns for anti-obesity medicines imported for personal use through the internet: a cross-sectional study |
title_sort | public health concerns for anti-obesity medicines imported for personal use through the internet: a cross-sectional study |
topic | Public Health |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3353131/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22581794 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2012-000854 |
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