PARIS, Aug 13: The International Chamber of Commerce’s Intelligence Bureau (CIB) has launched a global action communications plan that it hopes will allow it to deal with the growing global problem of counterfeit pharmaceuticals. The initiative flows out of last year’s Global Forum on Pharmaceutical Anti-Counterfeiting and, says a spokesman for the CIB, “provides a direct response to public concerns regarding counterfeit medicine.”

The spokesman says that “the CIB Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals Initiative (CPI) introduces a number of communications-based objectives designed to attack the problem of fraudulent pharmaceuticals.”

Once viewed as an abuse found mainly in the developing world, illegal and counterfeit pharmaceuticals are now emerging as a growing abuse in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere.

“The upsurge of counterfeit pharmaceuticals is a health risk that is escalating the world over. We are now seeing very real threats in numerous industrialized nations,” added the spokesman.

He pointed to last year’s Global Forum on Pharmaceutical Anti-Counterfeiting as a catalyst for this new initiative.

A recent survey of Russian citizens reflects growing public concern, says the ICC. The survey, conducted by the Coalition for Intellectual Property Rights (CIPR), found that 90 per cent of those surveyed thought counterfeit medicines were an important problem. Even more tellingly, 80 per cent felt the issue was “personally very important” to them, and nine out of 10 said they would like to receive more information from trusted sources about fake drugs.

In the United States, the US Food and Drug Administration has seen its counterfeit drug investigations increase to over 20 per year since 2000, after averaging only about five per year through the late 1990s.

One of the primary objectives of the new CIB initiative is to increase the collection and dissemination of information on counterfeit materials between law enforcement, pharmaceutical companies, the media, regulators, and customs officials worldwide.

The CPI will try to decrease the traffic in fraudulent pharmaceuticals by opening channels of communication between these groups, and increasing investigation and protection efforts on a number of fronts. The initiative also makes use of the internet, planning a website to raise awareness, educate, inform and collect intelligence.

Since it was formed in 1985, the CIB has undertaken over 600 investigations into counterfeit products in more than 35 countries.