|
|
[Definitie:] "An ergogenic aid is any substance or phenomenon that enhances performance."
(Wilmore and Costill) 
|
|
|
||
|
||
|
0 2 - 0 9 - 2 0 0 5 Companies and some Californians indicted for selling fake drugs
DAVID TWIDDY KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A federal grand jury indicted three businesses and 11 people Wednesday in a conspiracy to sell $42 million worth of counterfeit, stolen and illegally imported prescription drugs, including the popular cholesterol drug Lipitor. The 57-count indictment named Kansas City-based Albers Medical Distributors Inc., Lexington, Neb.-based Med-Pro Inc., and Springfield, Ill.-based H.D. Smith Wholesale Drug Co. According to the indictment, the defendants acquired the drugs from a number of sources, repackaged them in counterfeit bottles and then sold them through drug wholesalers and retailers, often using fake documentation to hide their true origin.
Food and Drug Administration agent Larry Sperl said officials had no reports of ill health effects from the fake or illegally imported drugs. More than likely, the fakes simply didn't provide the benefit the patient expected, he said. The investigation first surfaced in 2003 when the FDA discovered three batches of fake Lipitor being sold by Albers. The company recalled 175,000 90-pill bottles of drug. The company's president, Douglas Albers of Leawood, Kan., has said he didn't know the Lipitor was bogus, saying he bought it from a Puerto Rican dealer authorized by Lipitor's manufacturer, Pfizer Inc. He has since filed suit in federal court in Kansas City against the dealer. Albers, who also was named in the indictment, couldn't be reached for comment. But prosecutors said in the indictment that Albers and his company had a large role in the scheme. The indictment claims the coconspirators sold drugs that had been stolen from locations in North Carolina and Florida. Among the drugs stolen include allergy medicine Flonase, migraine reliever Imitrex and acne medicine Accutane. Prosecutors said Albers and other wholesalers in the conspiracy should have known the drugs were stolen when they bought them. In other cases, the indictment said, the conspirators took genuine Lipitor and Celebrex, an arthritic reliever, that was intended to be sold in South America and illegally diverted them to the United States. Other conspirators took doses of the anticoagulant Coumadin, intended for hospital use only, and repackaged it for retail sale. The suit says the group also bought chemicals and equipment and sent them to Costa Rica to make a number of fake versions of drugs, including Lipitor, the human growth hormone Serostim, the anemia drug Procrit and Neupogen, which stimulates the production of white blood cells. The alleged conspiracy involved regional wholesalers who buy and sell prescription drugs to pharmacies, doctors, clinics and hospitals, U.S. Attorney Todd Graves said. In this case, a number of the defendants would procure the drugs and sell them to Albers. Albers allegedly later paid Med-Pro to repackage and distribute some of the drugs. H.D. Smith bought and sold drugs on the secondary market and continued to sell drugs coming from Med-Pro even after asking questions about smeared and suspicious-looking labels on some of the bottles, the suit says. In April 2004, Diana Coelyn, an agent for H.D. Smith, pleaded guilty to accepting payments from Albers Medical. Albers said the payments were commissions approved by her employers. "Today's indictment shines a light on a little-known aspect of marketing prescription drugs, a secondary market that can be vulnerable to unscrupulous wholesalers who introduce counterfeit, stolen and illegally diverted drugs into the national distribution system," Graves said. Sperl later added that consumers should routinely check their medication packaging and immediately question their doctors or pharmacists about suspicious packaging. "I think the American people should feel confident that the drugs they're taking are safe, but they should be aware of the drugs they are taking," he said. Investigation into the scheme has already netted a number of convictions and indictments. In January, Julio Cesar Cruz, of Miami, pleaded guilty to his role in the conspiracy and agreed to cooperate with authorities. California businessman Christopher Wayne Lamoreaux, 35, was convicted last year in Kansas City of defrauding NuCare Pharmaceuticals, where he was chief executive, by concealing $115,279 from NuCare that he received from Albers Medical. Lamoreaux, who is serving a 21-month prison sentence in Lompoc, Calif., also was named in Wednesday's indictment. Besides Albers and Lamoreaux, individuals named in the indictment were: Paul Louis Kriger, 48, of Thousand Oaks, Calif.; Michael Allyn Carlow, 52, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Med-Pro owner Richard K. Rounsborg, 47, of Kearney, Neb.; Noah Salcedo-Smith, 34, of San Fernando, Calif.; Frank Anthony Ianeillo, 61, of Stillwater, Penn.; Gary Wayne Smith, 36, of Mobile, Ala.; Albert David Nassar, 50, of New York; Salvatore A. Esposito, 47, of New York; and Alexander Anthony Nassar, 41, of Miami. Defendants couldn't be reached for comment. |
|
|
