Caveat Emptor

First it was fake CDs, VCDs, DVDs and Levi’s jeans. Then fake medications, even things like chemotherapy drugs and Neupogen. And now, fake glucometer strips. We got this memo from the FDA last week.

FDA Issues Nationwide Alert on Counterfeit One Touch Basic/Profile and One Touch Ultra Blood Glucose Test Strips

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is alerting the public to counterfeit blood glucose test strips being sold in the United States for use with various models of LifeScan, Inc., One Touch Brand Blood Glucose Monitors used by people with diabetes to measure their blood glucose. The counterfeit test strips potentially could give incorrect blood glucose values. No injuries have been reported to FDA to date.

The counterfeit test strips are:

• One Touch Basic®/Profile® (lot #272894A, 2619932 or 2606340) test strips; and
• One Touch Ultra® (lot #2691191) test strips.

The counterfeit test strips can be identified by the following characteristics:

Counterfeit One Touch Basic/Profile Test Strips
• Lot Numbers 272894A, 2619932 or 2606340
• Multiple Languages- English, Greek and Portuguese text on the outer carton
• Limited to 50-Count One Touch (Basic/Profile) Test Strip packages

Counterfeit One Touch Ultra Test Strips
• Lot Number 2691191
• Multiple Languages- English and French text on the outer carton
• Limited to 50-Count One Touch Ultra Test Strip packages

Not sure if this has hit the Asian market yet, since the US glucometers are presumably different since we’re still not using S.I units yet (I get a headache converting mmol/L to mg/dL when I talk to people back home). But seeing how cunning resourceful we Asians are, it’s only a matter of time when someone sets up a home factory making Mad-tonic pacemakers and AICDs, fake breast implants or GG MRI scanners.