As drug counterfeiters step up their sales of bogus medicines, global health regulators have few protections in place to prevent them from reaching patients, and new laws aimed at addressing the problem could be years away…Larger hospitals are likely to have more quality controls in place than individual clinics, but there are still concerns. The Mayo Clinic, for example, gets the vast majority of its drugs and supplies from Cardinal Health. But drug shortages pose a unique problem "where you have to begin to look for outside sources," said Robert Wolf, pharmacotherapy director for hematology and oncology at the Mayo Clinic's cancer center. Avastin was not in short supply however.

Reuters by Bill Berkrot

Tags: Cardinal Health, counterfeit, Issues, Pharmacology, Robert Wolf