Trading in people’s lives no longer stops at the borders of monopolizing a commodity or marketing an adulterated product. Rather, according to judicial data, it has reached medicines intended for cancer patients, who cling to them in the hope of a cure, while they mainly suffer from the difficulty of securing them and their dramatically high prices.
This issue returned to the forefront with the discriminatory action of the Public Prosecution, following the availability of information about the circulation of cancer drugs originating in Iran and India, which initial data showed were counterfeit or did not conform to the approved specifications.
In this context, judicial sources reveal to “Lebanon Debate” that former health ministers granted, about three years ago and during the Corona pandemic phase, exceptional licenses to companies to import medicines for treating cancer, with the required conditions and examinations to be completed later, without setting a clear deadline for their completion.
According to the sources, it became clear after about three years, after these medicines entered the Lebanese market and some of them were used by cancer patients, that there were three types that were subject to serious suspicions in terms of counterfeiting and non-compliance with specifications. Data indicate that some of these preparations are not even used in the countries to which they were manufactured, while they entered Lebanon based on exceptional licenses.
Reports submitted as part of the investigation also talk about huge profits made by import operations, estimated at more than $40 million in total, and related to medicines imported from Iran and India.
The Cassation Public Prosecutor, Judge Ahmed Rami Al-Hajj, placed his hand on the file, and he is waiting for a detailed report from the Director General of the Ministry of Health explaining the mechanism of these medicines entering Lebanon, the parties that authorized their import, and how they reach patients without discovering the supposed violations before putting them on the market.
The investigation also focuses on the reasons for not activating the oversight and examination mechanisms, and on the continuation of the exceptional licenses granted to importing companies since the Corona pandemic phase, in preparation for determining responsibilities and summoning everyone proven to be linked to the file, including former officials and ministers, if investigations require it.
