Katherine Eban - Dangerous Doses: A True Story of Cops, Counterfeiters, and the Contamination of Americas Drug Supply

Copyright 2005 by Katherine Eban

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

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A Counterfeita Plated Person reprinted by the permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Thomas H Johnson, ed, Cambridge, Mass : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Eban, Katherine.
Dangerous doses how counterfeiters are contaminating Americas drug supply/Katherine Eban.1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Pharmaceutical policyUnited States. 2. Drug adulteration. 3. DrugsSafety measures. 4. Product counterfeiting. [DNLM 1. FraudUnited States. 2. Pharmaceutical Preparationssupply & distributionUnited States. 3. Consumer AdvocacyUnited States. 4. Government RegulationUnited States. 5. Legislation, DrugUnited States. QV 736 E15d 2005] I. Title.
RA401A3E25 2005
363 19'4dc22 2004025581
ISBN -13: 978-0-15-101050-9 ISBN -10: 0-15-101050-1
ISBN -13: 978-0-15-603085-4 (pbk.) ISBN -10: 0-15-603085-3 (pbk.)

e ISBN 978-0-547-53853-2
v2.0717

For my beloved friend Karen Avenoso (19671998)
Whom I admire and miss every day

D ANGEROUS D OSES IS BASED ON TWO-AND-A-HALF YEARS OF reporting in which I conducted more than 160 significant interviews with people involved in the problem of contaminated medicine in America. Those I interviewed include government investigators, pharmacists, doctors, patients, drug makers, lobbyists, politicians, regulators, lawyers, researchers, and pharmaceutical wholesalers, as well as those involved in drug counterfeiting and diversion. I also conducted dozens of background interviews with sources that asked not to be named but whose contributions helped to shape the book.

In the course of this reporting, I obtained more than 13,000 pages of documents. These include government records received in response to sixteen Freedom of Information requests I submitted to the Food and Drug Administration, the Florida health department, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and other state pharmacy boards. Wherever possible, I have relied on original material including internal memorandums, police reports, sales records, shipping records, correspondence, investigative records, inspection reports, search warrants, surveillance videotapes, photographs, and court documents. This material includes the investigative records from Operation Stone Cold of both the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Miami-Dade Police Department.

My reporting has benefited from the extensive help of federal and state law-enforcement officials, including members of the Operation Stone Cold task force. In the books endnotes, the reader will find references to documents I used to re-create scenes and make factual assertions. Material that came from interviews and events that I reported firsthand is not cited in endnotes. Instead, after the endnotes, I have provided a list of substantive on-the-record interviews I conducted for the book. I have not included the names of the hundreds of people I interviewed whose information did not directly shape the narrative.

I made sixteen trips to Florida, as well as trips to Nevada, Missouri, Tennessee, Georgia, and Washington, D.C. Scenes I did not witness were re-created through interviews with those present as well as through investigative records, transcripts, audiotapes, and videotapes. I worked to resolve discrepancies through repeated interviews with as many of those present as possible. The few instances where discrepancies remain are documented in endnotes. In drawing on investigative reports, I did my best to independently confirm the information contained in them.

Each of those persons or companies described in this book as being involved in potentially criminal or other unlawful activity was given an opportunity to comment, respond to allegations, or correct the record, either firsthand or through their lawyers. Readers should keep in mind that, except as expressly stated otherwise in the text or endnotes: At the time this book went to press none had been determined to have violated any criminal or other laws; all have, or should be considered to have, denied any wrongdoing; and each of those indicted has pleaded not guilty. All should be deemed innocent of any accusations of unlawful activity unless and until proved otherwise in the final outcome of judicial proceedings. Readers are encouraged to consult the Whos Who immediately following and the endnotes.

Winter 2004/2005