Fake Viagra pills are pushed to kids online using Facebook & YouTube

Illegal online pharmacies are using Facebook and YouTube to target millions of youngsters with viagra, a report warned yesterday.

More than HALF of the products they sell are counterfeit Viagra the annual United Nations drugs report claimed. Prof Hamid Ghodse, the UN narcotics control chief, said young people must beware who they talk to and interact with on the internet. He warned that the pharmacies were becoming “very sophisticated” in approaching youngsters on social media sites — leaving them “very vulnerable” online. He added: “This has become really rather sinister now. It is much more widespread than you can believe it is".

“They are using the social media, engaging people in a variety of ways — which in the first instance you do not see they are marketing counterfeit Viagra.. “In a very sophisticated way, they are getting the right question on to YouTube, on to Facebook, and even chatting in chatrooms. They get engaged and then bombard them with counterfeit Viagra.” Items being sold apart from fake erection dysfunction pills like Viagra are sleeping pills, the report said. It added that the illegal pharmacies made huge efforts to look legitimate with many carrying pictures of doctors or quotes endorsing their site. Around 12,000 controlled drugs sent by mail were seized in 2010 — nearly 60 per cent from India.

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