Buying drugs online has never been easier – and buying counterfeit products has never been more likely. However, many patients only recognize these fakes when it is already too late.
Advertising has never been as personalized as it is today. Especially online, where we can see ads that are perfectly tailored towards us – be it ads for the latest clothes, accessories for our favorite hobby or our daily medication. The problem is that all ads can be deceitful. This is annoying when it comes to a new T-shirt, but not tragic. When it comes to false advertisements for medication, however, it can end fatally.
These drugs were particularly often advertised or purchased online. Blue: Italy; Red: Spain. Credit: Project CAPSULE, Marco Dugato
The market for counterfeit and substandard medicines has boomed, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic – most of them are sold online. A current project has now set itself the goal of investigating consumer awareness of substandard and counterfeit medicines and the risk of buying them online. The results are alarming.
The scientists conducted a representative sample of internet users in Italy and Spain who had already purchased at least one pharmaceutical online. The participants had to distinguish between legitimate and illegal advertising. “The results showed that consumers correctly categorized legitimate advertisements 63 % of the time, but struggled significantly with illicit ads, correctly identifying them only 43 % of the time in Italy and 42 % in Spain”, according to the study authors.
Type of answers provided on the total number of legitimate (N 3,162) or illicit (N 3,159) advertisements. Credit: Project CAPSULE, Marco Dugato
The scientists agree that awareness needs to be raised. Until now, attempts have been made to tackle the issue of counterfeit and substandard drugs in the traditional way, by focusing mainly on targeting online supply. Now, however, consumers are to be reached directly and made aware of the problem. These are the key findings of the report in a nutshell:
„Given the overall increase in online purchases of medicines,“ says Dr. Marco Dugato, researcher at Transcrime, „the results of the CAPSULE project and, specifically, the difficulty in distinguishing illegal advertising underline, on the one side, the role of targeted awareness campaigns to help consumers make informed choices and, on the other side, the need for better crime-proofing of legitimate advertising and selling channels to reduce the diffusion of substandard or fake medicines. This also requires a constant support from research in this area to monitor evolving consumer behavior and market dynamics.“
Image Source: Myriam Zilles, Unsplash
