Fake meds made with painkiller, flour sold online   

央视调查网络售药造假：止痛药掺面粉随便贴标签

在淘宝网上卖药的店铺有上千家，但是据药监局的专家介绍，淘宝里没有一家药店是获得国家审批的。而在搜索引擎上只要输入“药店”两个字，出现的网络药店数量也远远超过获得国家审批的129家网络药店数量。[查看全文]

(ECNS) -- Counterfeit drugs made of painkillers and flour are being sold in online drugstores in China, cntv.cn said on Wednesday.

Miss Wang, a relative of a patient, said she once bought her father the medicine "Shulongjin capsule," which claimed to treat rheumatism. The curative effect was poor, even though the advertisement for the drug said it can cure the disease in one month, Wang said.

After an investigation, a reporter found that the address of the pharmaceutical factory printed on the medicine's package didn't exist.

With help from the police, the reporter finally found the pharmaceutical factory, and it was a small and dirty workshop in a suburb of Jinan, Shandong province.

At the workshop, the reporter found nothing but pulverizers, painkillers, flour, and packing boxes for different kinds of medicine.

The producers smashed painkillers into powder and mixed it with flour, according to police.

The reporter also found online sellers of counterfeit medicine packages.

Police said the variety of counterfeit drugs sold online includes both prescription drugs and over-the-counter drugs.

The cost of manufacturing a bottle of fake capsules was about 2 to 3 yuan ($0.30 to $0.50). But they are sold for 25 yuan, police said.

The number of authorized online drugstores in the country is 129, according to an official from the China Food and Drug Administration.

None of the online drugstores on taobao.com, China's leading e-commerce platform, are qualified to sell medicine online, the official added.