Bitter Pills

Guest: Muhammad Zaman, PhD, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, author of "Bitter Pills: The Global War on Counterfeit Drugs" If you’re buying cheap Lipitor or Viagra on eBay or a Chinese website, there’s a chance you’re getting a counterfeit. That seems pretty obvious. But the much larger problem for global drug supplies comes down to sloppiness and poor quality. Not that someone is making fake Viagra pills out of chalk, but that lifesaving malaria drugs and antibiotics are tainted with a deadly chemical or don’t have the full amount of active ingredient to make them effective. This problem is terrifyingly common around the world – and even occasionally in the US – according to Boston University biomedical engineering professor Muhammad Zaman's new book, "Bitter Pills."