One-Third of Donated Medicine Found to be Useless, Study Finds

Nearly one-third of the medicines donated by U.S. pharmaceutical companies to relief agencies for use in poor countries are too old or inappropriate to be of much help, a new study has found.

About 70 per cent of such products given through two large charities from 1994 to 1997 did meet World Health Organization guidelines for shelf life, the study found. But the remainder of the sample — which involved 16,556 shipments to 129 countries — had expiration dates less than a year away.

The report of the study’s findings, which is being published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, does not identify the two charities in the study.

The project was led by Michael R. Reich, professor of international health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health. It was financed by the Partnership for Quality Medical Donations, which represents seven drug companies and six overseas relief agencies, including AmeriCares and the Catholic Medical Mission Board.

The coalition was formed two years ago following allegations that some relief organizations were accepting donations of outdated or otherwise unsellable medicines dumped by companies seeking charitable tax deductions.

The study says that recipients continue to complain that donated drugs arrive in unpredictable shipments and can entail significant costs to clear through customs, store, handle, and distribute.

James Russo, the coalition’s executive director, said the study showed that “we have to improve the donations, the relevance of them, and the procedures through which the donations are made.”

The report will be available soon at the Bulletin’s Web site: http://www.who.int/bulletin/. The complete study is available now on the Web at http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/faculty/reich/donations/.