Identify fake medicine, milk, food

(Chinhphu.vn) – Medicine, milk, and functional foods are essential items, used regularly in every family. Taking advantage of this need of the people, subjects have produced and traded fake medicine, milk, and food to profit hundreds of billions of dong.

Dr. Duong Duc Hung, Director of Viet Duc Friendship Hospital - Photo: VGP/TH

In a short time, the authorities have discovered and handled many production and trade lines of counterfeit goods, which are essential goods that play an important role in people's daily lives and disease prevention and treatment. These include fake medicines, fake milk, fake functional foods, etc. Although many agencies are responsible for management, the market is still complicated.

The Government e-newspaper has published a series of articles on the causes, methods and sophisticated tricks of violators when producing and trading counterfeit goods, while affirming the responsibility of management agencies from the central to local levels to focus on coordinating and implementing synchronously and seriously to thoroughly prevent this situation, ensuring safety for the people.

What are fake drugs, milk, and food?

Since the beginning of the year, authorities have continuously dismantled large-scale, long-term production and trading lines of fake drugs, fake milk, and fake functional foods in Ho Chi Minh City, Thanh Hoa, Hanoi , Phu Tho, etc.

What worries and concerns many people today is how to distinguish between fake and genuine goods, because these are essential goods, with great demand for daily use in families. Even medicine is an item that cannot be stopped when sick.

Speaking to reporters, Dr. Duong Duc Hung, Director of Viet Duc Friendship Hospital - a final surgical hospital in the country, shared that there are currently many ways for people to counterfeit medicine, functional foods or milk.

First, there are counterfeits, which are counterfeits of genuine products. On the surface, counterfeits look almost identical to the original, but are often made from different, lower-quality materials.

Second, the quality of the product that the subject brings to the market is not consistent with the registration with the state agency, it may not have enough content or lack active ingredients, or even replace other active ingredients, affecting the health of users.

"If the goods are ordinary items such as shirts, hats, pens, etc., when buying counterfeit goods, users only lose money and do not affect the human body. However, with counterfeit goods such as milk, medicine, and functional foods, people not only lose money but also affect the health and even the lives of users," emphasized Dr. Duong Duc Hung.

Doctors also cannot distinguish between fake and real drugs - Photo: VGP/TH

The leader of Viet Duc Hospital gave a specific example: if a patient with an infection is prescribed antibiotics, but they buy fake drugs, without active antibiotics or with insufficient dosage, even though they use the drugs, the patient's infection cannot be controlled, progresses severely, and can affect the patient's life.

Even doctors cannot distinguish between fake and real drugs with the naked eye. They only know what disease the drug or active ingredient they prescribe to the patient is used to treat and how it is treated. For the people, it is even more difficult to distinguish between fake and real drugs. They buy drugs based mainly on trust.

"We also cannot distinguish between fake and real drugs with the naked eye. Only by testing can we know if it is real or fake. Even fake drugs are very sophisticated nowadays, the drug may not have enough content, or may contain toxic substances," Mr. Duong Duc Hung affirmed.

Regarding fake food, the Department of Food Safety, Ministry of Health said that according to the definition of fake goods, fake food can exist in 2 forms, including: food with use value and uses that are not true to the natural origin and name of the goods; goods that have no use value or uses or have use value and uses that are not true to the declared or registered ones; at least one of the quality indicators or basic technical characteristics or the main quantitative substance that creates the use value and uses of the goods only reaches 70% or less compared to the minimum level according to the registered, declared regulations applied or printed on the label or packaging of the goods.

Food with labels or product packaging bearing instructions that forge the name or address of the organization or individual that produces, imports, or distributes the product; forge the circulation registration code, declaration code, or barcode of the goods, or forge the packaging of goods of other organizations or individuals; forge the origin or place of production, packaging, or assembly of the goods.

On April 10, 2025, the Ministry of Public Security's Investigation Police Agency prosecuted and arrested many subjects in the fake milk production ring at Rance Pharma International Pharmaceutical Joint Stock Company and Hacofood Group Nutrition Pharmaceutical Joint Stock Company, seizing 84 types of powdered milk products and more than 26,000 cans of milk.

According to Major General Hoang Anh Tuyen, Deputy Chief of Office of the Ministry of Public Security, the Investigation Police Agency, Ministry of Public Security has identified 12 food and nutritional products (powdered milk) with quality indicators of some main substances reaching less than 70% compared to the declared level, identified as counterfeit goods (fake in quality) according to the provisions of Point b, Clause 7, Article 3 of Decree No. 98/2020/ND-CP dated August 26, 2020 of the Government.

The Ministry of Public Security is continuing to investigate and clarify the remaining 72 products and recommends that people do not use these products.

Deputy Minister of Health Tran Van Thuan assessed that the production and trade of fake drugs, fake milk, and fake functional foods are serious violations in business. These are acts of profiting from the trust of consumers for a long time, regardless of legal regulations and the health of people, including children and sick people.

The risk of fake drugs, fake health protection foods, and fake functional foods infiltrating the hospital system is entirely possible - Photo: VGP/TH

Anyone can be a victim of counterfeit goods.

Standing from the perspective of both a "supplier" and a "consumer" of drugs, Associate Professor, Dr. Dao Xuan Co, Director of Bach Mai Hospital, said that the risk of fake drugs, fake health protection foods, and fake functional foods infiltrating the hospital system is entirely possible.

Faced with the increasing number of cases of counterfeit drugs, milk and functional foods being discovered with sophisticated tricks, this Hospital has proactively reviewed the entire supply chain and internal pharmacies to ensure patient safety.

The Director of Bach Mai Hospital also said that functional foods and health protection foods are not without value, but if not strictly controlled, abuse can cause patients to take risks and incur unnecessary costs.

In fact, fake milk has also "infiltrated" into hospitals such as the 108 Military Central Hospital and Bac Kan General Hospital and has reached many patients. Immediately after receiving the information, the leaders of these hospitals proactively directed specialized units to stop advising on the use and recall fake products, returning them to the suppliers.

Workers packing finished products at a fake milk powder production facility busted by Hanoi City Police

At the same time, contact patients who have been advised to use fake milk products, recommend stopping use and commit to accompanying patients, protecting consumer rights.

Regarding the food sector, Ms. Tran Viet Nga, Director of the Department of Food Safety, Ministry of Health, said that the situation of fake food and fake goods in general exists not only in Vietnam but also in many countries around the world.

According to some documents, the production of fake food costs the European community tens of billions of Euros each year. Independent experts also estimate that the global food industry suffers losses of about 40 billion USD due to fake food.

"In the field of food safety, we have a relatively complete system of legal documents. However, many businesses deliberately make mistakes, produce fake goods for profit, regardless of business ethics," Ms. Nga emphasized.

To prevent this situation, there must be a comprehensive solution to completely destroy the chain of buying, selling, producing and consuming counterfeit goods. This is the responsibility of the whole society, of the authorities, who must coordinate and consider it their job to act to the end.

"Every citizen should not be indifferent because anyone can buy fake goods. People must also participate in monitoring and reporting to authorities when detecting cases with signs of counterfeit goods. We must create a 'common clean atmosphere', not just 'wearing masks' for ourselves," said Dr. Duong Duc Hung.

Thuy Ha

Source: https://baochinhphu.vn/nhan-dien-thuoc-sua-thuc-pham-gia-102250508202557151.htm