ABOLISH CAN'T FIGHT

HEALTH CURE

Since 2001, the Department of Pharmaceutical Inspection has existed under the Ministry of Health. Its employees tried to fight the boom in counterfeiting in Russia. For three years, through the efforts of the Pharmaceutical Inspectorate, hundreds of batches of illegal and counterfeit drugs were seized and ...

Since 2001, the Department of Pharmaceutical Inspection has existed under the Ministry of Health. Its employees tried to fight the boom in counterfeiting in Russia. For three years, through the efforts of the Pharmaceutical Inspectorate, hundreds of batches of illegal and counterfeit drugs were seized and dozens of enterprises that did not meet the requirements of pharmacists were closed.

However, from June 1, the Office of Pharmaceutical Inspection under the leadership of Vladimir Shipkov was abolished. Rather, it has sunk into oblivion along with the entire Ministry of Health. The Ministry of Health and its former head, Yuri Shevchenko, was replaced by the Ministry of Health and Social Development of the Russian Federation, headed by Mikhail Zurabov. True, the Pharmaceutical Inspectorate is no longer there.

As one of the employees of the former department told Novaya Gazeta, “the abolition was a shock for the workers. And already the fact that you need to start all over again and look for a new job fades into the background. The main thing now is that there is no one to monitor the circulation of drugs in the pharmaceutical market and protect the population from counterfeit.”

DOSSIER "NEW"

In 1997, the governor of the Kursk region, Rutskoi, united the entire pharmacy network of the region (63 pharmacies) into the state enterprise Kurskpharmacy. All other enterprises that are not part of the association were banned from selling medicines. Pharmacies were forced to buy goods at inflated prices. A little later, Kurskpharmacy was privatized and turned into a JSC. And at the head of it was the son of Rutskoy Dmitry. The prosecutor's office saw in this the desire of officials to enrich themselves at the expense of regional property. The Arbitration Court found the privatization illegal.

In the spring of 2004, the activities of a large pharmaceutical company LLC FC Pulse, which, according to law enforcement agencies, was engaged in the sale of counterfeit medicines, were suppressed in the Moscow region. These products were supplied to almost all regions of Russia. According to the Organized Crime Control Department, FC Pulse has created five front companies in different regions to sell medicines. All of them had a license from the Ministry of Health for the right to wholesale medicines. The real annual shadow income of fly-by-night firms was at least $20 million a year. ("Newspaper" April 1, 2004).

In April 2004, for the first time in Russia, a large batch of counterfeit Viagra was withdrawn from illicit circulation. The profit of the scammers was supposed to be about five thousand dollars for five hundred packages of the drug (this is almost five times lower than their real value). In total, the merchants intended to sell a consignment of medicines worth one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Neither the license of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation for the wholesale sale of medicines, nor the permission of the copyright holder to use the trademark was found by law enforcement officers from the scammers.

Required note.

The dossier turned out to be meager not because of the laziness of the employees, just thousands of such stories are still in the shadows.