Source: Senado Federal - Brasília / DF - NEWSPAPER - 02/03/2010

Buying medicines only in pharmacies and drugstores was not enough to protect Brazilian consumers from gangs that operate in the clandestine drug trade. To assist in the fight against piracy and smuggling, Congress passed Law 11.903, enacted in January 2009, which instituted the National Drug Control System, which starts operating this year.

The medicine packages will now have a security label, with a barcode much more powerful than normal (two-dimensional Datamatrix), capable of storing thousands of information at the same time, gathered in a unique identifier of the medicine. A campaign by the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa), to be launched later this month, should guide consumers about the danger of using pirated drugs and how the new control system can help (see info).

Security labels will be provided to the pharmaceutical industry by the government agency responsible for printing the country's money, the Casa da Moeda. According to information from the special advisor to the presidency of Anvisa, Pedro Ivo Sebba Ramalho, pharmacies and drugstores will be required to install optical readers so that consumers can verify the authenticity of the medicines.

As the law stipulated three years so that laboratories could adapt to the new drug tracking system, consumers will have to pay attention until 2012 on the packaging of medicines. Those who do not have the new security label must continue to display the field that must be scraped with the aid of coins or some metal, where the name of the laboratory that produces the medicine must appear.

In addition, the consumer must observe the seal on the packaging. These two security items have been mandatory, according to Ramalho, since the creation of Anvisa in 1999. But he acknowledged, at the public hearing held by the Social Affairs Committee last Thursday, that they had no effect. Most of the Brazilian population is unaware of the scratch card and the seal, which are mandatory in the medicine packaging.

In view of the ineffectiveness of these consumer protection measures, Congress took the lead. Project (PL 6.672 / 02) by Deputy Vanessa Grazziotin (PC do B-AM), which went much faster in the Senate (PLC 24/2007) - it was less than two years -, with support mainly from Senator Inácio Arruda (PCdoB- CE), created an electronic control system to track the production and consumption of medicines. Through it, Brazilians will have one more weapon to combat piracy.
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