WASHINGTON – An overseas Internet site is shipping counterfeit versions of a popular Johnson & Johnson birth control patch, versions that won’t provide any protection against pregnancy, federal health officials warned Wednesday.
Do not use Ortho Evra patches – or any other drugs – ordered from the Web site www.rxpharmacy.ws, the Food and Drug Administration warned.While the contraceptive patch is the only drug so far proved a fake from that site, the FDA said consumers should consider its other products suspect, too. Contact a health provider immediately if you’ve used them, the FDA advised.
That Web site is the only known source of the counterfeit patches, said the FDA, which is investigating the fraud’s source.
The site appeared to have shut down by Wednesday, but the FDA couldn’t say how long it had been operating or how many U.S. women might have ordered the patches. It has no reports of pregnancies linked to them.
The fake birth control was shipped from India, and the Web site apparently was operated by an entity called American Style Products of New Delhi.
The Web site claimed to be offering J&J’s FDA-approved patches, complete with pictures of the real thing, said FDA Associate Commissioner John Taylor.
A customer sparked the FDA’s investigation when she complained to J&J that she didn’t get what she ordered, Taylor said. Instead of the official patch, with its special sealed packaging and company label, she received a plastic bag full of patches with no label or other identifying information.Testing showed the patches contained no contraceptive ingredient.