Journalist and Author
This has been my week: Oh, wow: I should write about that. No, wait — that. Damn, new news; I’ll blog this paper instead. Except, hold on — this one is great too…
So to solve my indecision before the week ends, here you go: Most of this week’s most interesting news, in round-up form.
A British couple have been convicted and jailed for running a black market in veterinary drugs that was so large, it earned more money than legal sales of the same drugs — 6 million pounds (almost $10 million) just in the United Kingdom where the case was brought.
(In a detail that seems made for the beleaguered UK tabloids, the wife of the couple moonlighted as a Princess Diana lookalike.)
The business — lucrative enough to pay for an 11-bedroom farmhouse in France — was based on counterfeit and falsely labeled drugs purchased primarily in India, imported covertly, and resold through a network of companies to farmers, stables and kennels, and veterinary practices. The drugs offered included anti-inflammatories, pain medications, sedatives and antibiotics. Which means that the case raises an important questions: How much counterfeit and covertly distributed drugs are contributing to the international epidemic of antibiotic resistance — in this case, not just in human medicine, but in veterinary medicine as well.
