Drugmakers, Interpol ramp up fight against fakes

More than two dozen of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies have agreed to provide funding and other support to Interpol's battle against counterfeit prescription drugs, the international police agency said Tuesday.

Interpol's newly created Pharmaceutical Crime Program aims to help health agencies, police and customs bureaus in countries around the globe stem the supply of bogus brand-name and generic medicines, as well as identify and dismantle the organized crime rings distributing them.

Those rings, which operate across borders, are raking in billions of dollars every year, costing legitimate drugmakers a small fortune in lost sales. Meanwhile patients who unknowingly take counterfeit drugs often are poisoned or get sicker because they're not receiving what the doctor prescribed. Experts estimate hundreds of thousands of people around the world die because of counterfeit medicines each year.

The pharmaceutical companies have pledged a total of ?4.5 million, or nearly $5.9 million, over three years to help Interpol with efforts including training local law enforcement officials on investigative procedures, evidence handling and how to better work with partners outside their countries.

Interpol also will help those authorities build up their infrastructure and target enforcement actions against crime rings that make and sell fake drugs, and also divert medication illegally to countries where it's not approved.

"We will develop a program according to what is best for the international community and what will save lives," Aline Plancon, head of Interpol's counterfeiting and pharmaceutical crime program, told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview.

"It's been difficult for us as Interpol to sustain our activities" against counterfeiting over the years, she said, because the agency's limited resources also are needed for areas the international community sees as more serious crimes. Those include human trafficking, narcotics dealing, terrorism and money laundering.

Besides the financial support, the pharmaceutical companies, most of which spend millions on their own investigations to fight counterfeiting of their medicines, will step up sharing with Interpol the intelligence they uncover.

Plancon said her agency, based in Lyon, France, plans to better coordinate its work and collaborate with its member countries. Interpol also will run pilot projects, experimenting with new strategies to find ways to be more effective.

The industry support "forms a bridge between the public and private sectors and will assist Interpol and each of its 190 member countries to more effectively tackle the problem of medical product counterfeiting," Interpol Secretary General Ronald K. Noble said in a statement.

The World Health Organization estimates sales of medicines that are counterfeit, contaminated or otherwise illegal total $430 billion a year.

In developing countries, up to 50 percent of the drug supply may be fake. That's many times more than in developed countries, where most potentially dangerous fake drugs are sold through rogue Internet pharmacies, but counterfeit drugs increasingly are getting into the supply of pharmacies and hospitals.

In the U.S., for example, three times in the last year counterfeit versions of the Roche Group cancer drug Avastin have infiltrated the wholesale supply and been sold to cancer clinics and hospitals. An unknown amount of those fakes was administered to patients. And in Pakistan last year, 109 heart patients died after taking counterfeit medicine.

The 29 companies supporting the effort include Amgen Inc., AstraZeneca PLC, Eisai Co., GlaxoSmithKline PLC, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly and Co., Merck & Co., Novartis,AG, Pfizer Inc., Roche Group and Sanofi SA.

John Lechleiter, chairman of the trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and CEO of Lilly, said Monday that the new program will supplement Interpol's existing efforts.

"Counterfeiting activity is evolving so rapidly" and becoming more common, he said.

As a result, one thrust of the program will be to try to more quickly spot new trends in which drugs are being counterfeited, where the crime rings are based and where they are distributing fake medicines, Lechleiter said.

"This is really meant to cement some of these efforts together," he said. "After the initial (three-year) period, depending on the results, we can certainly extend that out."

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Linda A. Johnson can be followed at http://twitter.com/LindaJ_onPharma.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-03-12-US-Interpol-Counterfeit-Drugs/id-1e9ecf01af43482599604106845cc1dc

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Shipper: 3 sailors kidnapped off Nigeria are freed

KANO, Nigeria (AP) ? Three sailors ? including two Russians ? have been freed following weeks in captivity after pirates raided their cargo ship off the coasts of Nigeria and Cameroon, a shipping company said Monday.

Carisbrooke Shipping Ltd. of the United Kingdom said in a statement Monday that the men had been released after the Feb. 7 attack on the MV Esther C.

"The three officers were confirmed as being safe and in good spirits on March 11 after 31 days in captivity," the company said.

The company did not say whether a ransom had been paid to secure the sailors' freedom. Such kidnappings typically end with a ransom payment being made, usually in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Pirates attacked the vessel some 80 miles (130 kilometers) off Nigeria's coast. The company previously said the pirates stole the sailors' personal belongings before leaving with the three sailors.

Russia's Foreign Ministry previously identified two of the sailors as being Russians.

The attack on the cargo ship came in a series of escalating assaults in the Gulf of Guinea, which follows the African continent's southward curve from Liberia to Gabon.

Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea has escalated from low-level armed robberies to hijackings and cargo thefts. Last year, London-based Lloyd's Market Association ? an umbrella group of insurers ? listed Nigeria, neighboring Benin and nearby waters in the same risk category as Somalia, where two decades of war and anarchy allowed piracy to flourish. But as piracy has dropped in recent months off Somalia's coast, it's only risen in the Gulf of Guinea.

Pirates in West Africa also have been more willing to use violence in their robberies, as they often target the cargo, not the crew for ransom as is the case off Somalia. Experts say many of the pirates come from Nigeria, where corrupt law enforcement allows criminality to thrive and there's a bustling black market for stolen crude oil.

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Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP .

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/shipper-3-sailors-kidnapped-off-nigeria-freed-160221667.html

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Cop found guilty in plot to kidnap, cook, eat women

Mark St George / Rex USA

NYPD officer Gilberto Valle, 28, was accused of plotting to kidnap up to 100 women before raping, killing and cooking them.

By NBCNewYork.com

An NYPD officer?accused in a gruesome plot?to kidnap women, cook them and?dine on their "girl meat"?has been convicted on all charges.

Officer Gilberto Valle, a 28-year-old father of one, was found guilty Tuesday on a charge of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and a charge of illegally using a federal computer database that prosecutors had said he accessed to gain personal information about women he was targeting.

The grisly case included online transcripts of his plans; at one point he told an alleged co-conspirator that his oven was "big enough to fit one of these girls if I folded their legs."

"I was thinking of tying her body onto some kind of apparatus ... cook her over a low heat, keep her alive as long as possible," he was accused of saying.

Defense attorney Julia Gatto had argued that Valle's chats on fetish websites "are no more real than an alien invasion."

Prosecutors countered that an analysis of Valle's computer found he was taking concrete steps to abduct his wife and at least five other women he knew. They said he looked up potential targets on a restricted law enforcement database, searched the Internet for how to knock someone out with chloroform, and showed up on the block of one woman.

Valle "left the world of fantasy and entered the world of reality," prosecutor Hadassa Waxman said during closing arguments. She said the officer's arrest last year interrupted a ghoulish plan to "kidnap, torture, rape and commit other horrific acts on young women."

The jury heard Valle's potential victims testify that they were trading innocent-sounding emails and texts with him, unaware he was supposedly scheming to make meals out of them. The government also sought to drive home the point that Valle was more of a threat because he was a police officer.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement after the verdict was read that "the Internet is a forum for the free exchange of ideas, but it does not confer immunity for plotting crimes and taking steps to carry out those crimes."

This story was originally published on Tue Mar 12, 2013 11:30 AM EDT

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/12/17284267-jury-finds-nypd-cop-guilty-of-plotting-to-kidnap-cook-eat-women?lite

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US-based 'Pope TV' to zero in on papal selection

IRONDALE, Ala. (AP) ? A global broadcasting operation based in Alabama is offering a different kind of news coverage of the election of a new pope.

Nestled among the Protestants and pine trees of suburban Birmingham, Eternal Word Television Network isn't just talking about Vatican politics or the church sex scandal in its run-up to the papal vote. Rather, "Pope TV" is airing shows about how the new man may affect church liturgy, teachings and Vatican diplomacy.

While other media explained the basics of the smoke signals used at the Vatican to signal the vote outcome ? white puffs mean there's a new pope, dark smoke means there isn't yet ? EWTN analysts discussed the pontiff's influence on the use of candles and crucifixes during worship. In a live Mass aired Tuesday, a priest asked viewers to pray for the conclave in Rome.

Faith and religious practices are a constant theme on the non-profit EWTN, which doesn't air commercials but does broadcast papal appearances and pronouncements the way ordinary U.S. cable news channels cover an American president.

Started by a nun in a cramped garage more than three decades ago, EWTN now produces television broadcasts available in 225 million households in more than 140 counties and territories. The network, with 336 total employees, has about 50 staffers in Rome working on conclave coverage being aired in English, Spanish and German, said chief executive Michael Warsaw.

Aside from its television side, EWTN also operates two radio networks and a shortwave broadcasting operation; web-based programs; and a U.S.-based newspaper, the National Catholic Register.

Warsaw said EWTN's coverage of the conclave is purposely different from that in the secular media, focusing more on how a new pope might affect faith practices and how that translates into the lives of believers.

"It's a spiritual moment in the life of the church. It's, we believe, the Holy Spirit guiding the cardinal electors to choose the right man," he said.

EWTN is sometimes on the upper reaches of the cable dial and isn't available in many homes, but many Catholics pay attention nonetheless.

Surveys show about 9 percent of adult U.S. Catholics, or about 5 million people, watch EWTN at least once every six months, and EWTN.com is one of the most-visited Catholic websites in the United States, according to Mark Gray, a senior researcher at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

"As Catholic media go, they draw a huge audience," said Gray. Audience numbers will likely go up because of all the news from the Vatican, he said.

Critics fault the network for focusing too much on what's happening in America and at the Vatican while essentially ignoring the rest of the world's Catholics.

Faithful viewer Louis Sanchez, however, keeps coming back. Sanchez said he likes EWTN because it focuses not just on the politics and controversy within the church but also on faith, the church's very reason for being.

"The regular media is managed so they can show only one side of the story," said Sanchez, of Memphis, Tenn., who visited the EWTN studios with his wife and two children Monday. "They don't show you the religious side, and EWTN does."

Plus, Sanchez said, he's a big fan of the "Vatican Insider" of EWTN, Rome bureau chief Joan Lewis.

"It's like she has access to everything," he said.

Founded by Mother Angelica in 1981, EWTN is located in conservative, Deep South state. Though Hispanic immigrants have helped expand parishes statewide in recent years, Alabama's coast was the center of the state's Catholic population for generations.

EWTN looks much like any other TV operation: There's a control room with TV screens in front of big desks filled with brightly lit buttons; a studio with stage lights hanging overheard; a forest of satellite dishes in the back of the 10-acre complex.

But it has other things you don't see at secular operations, like white statues of angels and saints scattered around the exterior. There are indoor and outdoor chapels for Mass; crucifixes hanging in hallways; and photos of Mother Angelica, who is retired from the media and lives in a convent in north Alabama.

The network operates on a nonprofit basis and neither sells ads nor accepts money for its programming, yet it brings in millions annually. Federal tax forms filed by nonprofit groups show EWTN took in $36.3 million in 2011, nearly all of it in donations, and ended the year with more than $40 million in assets.

Warsaw said the network's 24/7 focus on Roman Catholicism gives it an advantage when big events happen, such as the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI and the selection of a successor. But while the network is tweeting and offering live updates about the selection process, just like other media outlets, it won't necessarily worry about being the first to break all the big news leading up to the announcement of a new pontiff.

"Our mission is not to be first, our mission is to be right and to provide the right perspective and context," said Warsaw, who will be in Rome for the conclave.

Massimo Faggioli, an Italian who teaches theology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn., said EWTN is unique in its size and reach, but he faults the operation for being too hesitant to air opinions outside Vatican orthodoxy.

"I can't even watch it. It gives always an official version of how thing should be: The Vatican version and the American Catholic version," said Faggioli.

EWTN's stated goal on federal tax forms is to "communicate the teachings and the beauty of the Catholic church and to help people grow in their love and understanding of God and his infinite mercy," and Warsaw doesn't make any apology for communicating Vatican beliefs to viewers.

The papal election gives the network another chance to put church business into spiritual terms for a wide audience, he said.

"While you certainly can't deny that there is an aspect of the election of the pope that is political, it's not entirely political," said Warsaw.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-based-pope-tv-zero-papal-selection-173217296.html

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