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GLOBAL 3000 | Dangerous Pills: Peru's Struggle Against Bogus Medicines

921 views · Published 20 August 2008 · 4:32 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: DW News · 2008 · Entertainment

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In Peru, taking medicine can be like Russian roulette. 40 percent of all medicines on the Peruvian market are counterfeit. And users are lucky if the medicine is merely ineffective. The pills and treatments are often poisonous, harming more than they help -- sometimes even causing death.

The police and public health authorities cannot control the problem. There are hundreds of small pharmacist shops in Lima alone. And that's where most Peruvians get their medicine. It's cheap there -- but dangerous. Hospitals offer trustworthy medicine, but it costs about 20 percent more.

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