Purveyors Of Black-Market Pharmaceuticals Target Immigrants

(By John M. Gionna for Kaiser Health News)

The bootleg medications were smuggled across the border and sold to mostly Latino immigrants in public spaces throughout Los Angeles — at swap meets, parks, beauty salons and makeshift stands outside mom-and-pop grocery stores.

The drugs were cheap, and the customers — mostly from Mexico and Central America — did not need prescriptions to buy them. Some of the products featured brand names and colorful packaging that immigrants knew well from their home countries — including Ciprofloxacina, a potent antibiotic, and Dolo Nervi Doce — translated as “Pain Nerve 12” — an injectable B-complex vitamin taken for fatigue.  Continue reading article here…

Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit national health policy news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation

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