Source: Jornal Nacional - TV - RJ - 02/11/2009

Medicines sold in Brazil will gain a security system against counterfeits. The technology is already used in other products will allow to track where the medicines have passed until they reach the consumer.

Appearance alone is not enough. Before buying cabbage, bananas, peppers, now, the townspeople want to know more about the farm. In a supermarket in São Paulo, fruits and vegetables have a number. With this kind of RG, the consumer can check on the internet where they were produced.

"We are able to understand where in the chain there may have been a certain occurrence and act on that point, making it possible for the consumer to consume a product without harm to his health," says food director Mariângela Ribeiro. In a chemical industry, the concern is to avoid counterfeiting and smuggling. A seal is the bet to reverse losses of 20 million dollars a year. The new anti-fraud label has a holographic seal and a two-dimensional bar code. With an optical reader, it is possible to know when and where it was manufactured. "This customer would then have the security of knowing that that product was produced by the original manufacturer, so that he is not the target of buying a counterfeit product, a stolen product," says the director of the chemical industry, Eduardo Leduc. The pharmaceutical industry also relies on this system to end illegal trade. In the first half of this year, 316 tons of fake drugs were seized, seven times what was collected in the same period in 2008. Several attempts to combat the illegal drug trade have failed. Among them, the “scratch card”. Since 1998, every medicine has an area that, when scraped, reveals the manufacturer's brand. And even that was copied by the counterfeiters. Now, a law determines that as of January 2010, all packages leave the factory with a unique code. It will reveal the location of the medicine and the path it took. In the first phase, factories, distributors and pharmacies will have to install the tracking system. Each time the medicine changes hands, the change is recorded in a database administered by the government. If the consumer suspects that he has bought a counterfeit drug, he can quickly remove the doubt. The move will require business investment. And the government has already warned that it will not allow transfers to the consumer. In 2012, the tracking system will also identify the doctor who prescribed it and the patient who bought the medicine. “It is very valuable information that must be respected the secrecy and privacy of the drug buyer, the patient and the doctor,” says André Montoro Filho, from the Brazilian Institute of Ethics in Competition.