An information campaign "Dangerous Medicaments" was launched in Prague today. The campaign is focused on imitations and illegal pharmaceuticals and it is organised by the State Institute for Drug Control. The Czech Agriculture and Food Inspection Authority is one of the partners of the campaign.

The aim of the campaign is to warn public against imitations of medicaments or pharmaceuticals that were put into market illegally. The visual part of the campaign is represented by Ms. Slim, Mr. Strong and Mr. Shy who are the main characters of the short spots warning against the risk of purchasing medicaments on the Internet and illegal offers of medicaments. New webpage www.nebezpecneleky.cz is intended for broad public. Visitors can find here all necessary information: spots, information leaflets, manual for purchasing medicaments on the Internet, frequented questions and answers, recently detected imitations or illegal pharmaceuticals, and examples of campaigns from other European countries as well.

The Czech Agriculture and Food Inspection Authority, which has seemingly nothing in common with medicaments, is also the partner of the communication campaign. Pursuant to the law, CAFIA is responsible for inspection of food supplements, i.e. food category often confused with medicaments by the public. Furthermore, producers or sellers enhance this false impression by attributing curative and preventive effects to food supplements, not only in advertisements, for whose inspection CAFIA is not responsible, but also in accompanying leaflets and on the own packaging of products. CAFIA also dealt with cases of food supplements at which laboratory confirmed presence of pharmacologically effective substances  which are normally used in production of medicaments on medical prescription, but naturally, they must not be present in foodstuffs. They are for example anabolic steroids in food supplements for sportspeople or sildenafil and its analogues in supplements for erection boost. In some cases, substances not analysed yet and not used even by pharmaceutical companies were thus detected.

"Food supplements are more and more popular, that is why CAFIA will take disciplinary actions more intensively and resolutely as regards producers, importers or sellers that take advantage of despair of ill people and promise them impossible or they threaten the health of consumers by adding prohibited substances into preparations. People must also know what they can expect from food supplements: food supplements do not heal, they just enrich common nutrition by valuable nutrients. It is necessary to keep in mind that foodstuffs are not medicaments," Martin Klanica, authorised to deputise Director General of CAFIA, said on the occasion of launching the campaign.

The campaign started by today′s expert conference "Medicaments – Public Issue: Threat of Imitation" held in the Senate of the CR Parliament. Representatives of further organisations supporting this campaign also took part in this conference. They were for example the National Drug Headquarters, the Customs Authority of the CR, the Industrial Property Office, representatives of pharmaceutical industry associations, patients’ organisations, doctors, pharmacists, and others.