Well, this isn’t exactly great news for our home and native land.
United States government prosecutors are accusing an online Canadian pharmacy of selling $78 million worth of unapproved, mislabeled, and counterfeit drugs to doctors across the United States.
That is a pretty major deal.
Canada Drugs and its affiliates in the United Kingdom and Barbados are charged with smuggling, money laundering, and conspiracy. On its website, the Winnipeg-based company describes itself as offering low prices on medicine from Canada, the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand.
According to prosecutors, Canada Drugs began selling drugs that were mislabeled or unapproved by the Food and Drug Administration to US physicians in 2009. They also began playing with people’s lives at that point – most of the drugs are used to treat cancer and the effects of chemotherapy.
Prosecutors allege that sales went on until 2012. That’s when the FDA began investigating the company’s role in distributing counterfeit versions of the cancer drug Avastin. By June of 2014, Health Canada had suspended the company’s establishment license over “significant concerns” about its manufacturing practices.
As for Canada Drugs, so far, they’ve remained silent on the matter.