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January 19, 2016

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Home » City specials » Hangzhou

Health warning: Pills you take may be fake

By Wu Huixin | January 19, 2016, Tuesday | Print Edition

A 60-year-old Jiaxing man paid a company 280,000 yuan (US$42,607) to purchase medicine purported to improve health, even though his family warned him that the products might be fake.

The man didn’t believe the warning until two Jiaxing policemen, disguised as applicants for jobs in the company, gathered the evidence to expose the scam.

The company turned out to be fraudulent, bilking unwary consumers of more than 2 million yuan across China. The purported “medicine,” sold at 1,900 yuan per box, turned out to have a value of only a few yuan.

The case is not uncommon in Zhejiang Province.

Earlier this month, a 70-year-old Hangzhou couple were told they had received a free trip organized by a medical company. When they arrived at their destination in Ningbo, a physical examination awaited them in the designated hotel. There, they were tested by what was described as an “advanced medical machine” and diagnosed as being likely to contract cancer within two years.

Fearful for their health, the couple bought dozen of boxes of medicine from the company, shelling out 53,000 yuan. However, when their children heard of the parents’ experience in Ningbo, they called the police.

The company explained that it was just organizing beneficial activities for the elderly and selling medicine was a sideline to that purpose, but it still drew heavy public criticism.

The elderly are prime targets of bogus medical companies.

The Zhejiang Province Consumer Council last August said it logged a 120 percent increase in complaints related to suspect medicines.

The complaints mainly centered on four aspects: illegal additives in medicine, unsubstantiated claims about medicinal effects, tampering with the approval numbers of drugs, and illegally changing packaging, labeling and dose instructions. The first two aspects were the most common.

Doctor Chen Binhua at the Hangzhou No. 7 Hospital said he recently treated a patient surnamed Huang, who showed symptoms of a mental disorder after taking five or six medicinal products that claimed to strengthen the body, boost blood circulation and benefit the liver and spleen.

Chen said some of the products had no approval numbers, and he suspected the use of stimulation additives that could cause metal problems if taken for a long period of time.

The elderly, who fear the onset of poor health, tend to be more gullible where medicinal remedies are concerned, according to health authorities. They believe the claims of flyers dropped in their mailboxes or plastered on roadside walls. They are receptive to unsolicited phone calls from dubious vendors.

In more sophisticated ploys, medicine swindlers organize meetings and invite the elderly to attend. At these sessions, so-called “medical experts” appear, promoting health scares and exaggerating product effects.

The companies also offer discounts and gifts to make buyers feel they are getting a bargain.

The scam vendors carefully avoid involving younger and more educated people in their target audiences.

Once elderly people are sucked into the scams, they are often relentlessly bombarded with new offers.

“The sellers and producers of these products are arrested if found to be fake,” Xiao Wei, a policeman from Jiaxing in northern Zhejiang, told Shanghai Daily.

Still, the crackdown on illegal medicine fraud is an uphill battle because the pool of elderly seeking remedies is so large. Many old people fear death or fear contracting illnesses that would burden their children.

At the same time, “empty nesters” are more easily taken in by the approaches of strangers who purport to be concerned about their health. Some of that could be avoided if children spent more time with their parents, psychologists say.

According to an online survey on the Tencent website, 68 percent of respondents said they have warned their parents to be wary about unsolicited medicine claims.

“I often purchase quality ginseng for my parents in order to prevent them from buying fake medicines,” said a netizen called Yezi. “They now have incredible craving for healthcare products, and the only way to prevent them from falling prey to fraud is to buy them quality products myself.”

Hangzhou


 

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