The problem of fake medicines cannot be ignored. A report from the European Commission found that, of 32 million medicinal products stopped by customs officials in 2007, 15% were suspected of infringing on intellectual property rights. And at the fifth Global Forum on Pharmaceutical AntiCounterfeiting in Florida this past February, Jim Thomson, chairman of the European Alliance for Access to Safe Medicines, estimated that the cost of counterfeits to the healthcare systems in the EU was at least €50 billion ($68 billion) in 2007. Countless reports have documented that phony meds cost human lives—for example, the bogus drugs that claim the lives of children stricken with malaria. In the following pages we take a close look at the problem of counterfeit drugs and the solutions proposed to address this growing problem.