Dietilenglicol y Los Principales Adulterantes de Medicamentos y Drogas

2025-07-16T20:17:54+00:00

An efficient public health system extends beyond merely crafting policies for disease prevention and treatment; it also demands assurance of the quality of medicines available on the market. In this framework, the verification, regulation, and approval of pharmaceutical products by competent authorities are essential to guarantee effective treatments and to avert the development of additional health events.

This paper provides a documentary review of secondary sources to examine the historical evolution and status of illicit medicines, whose enduring presence poses a latent yet persistent risk to global public health.

Under international treaties ratified by states, governments are obliged to monitor the quality of medicines marketed within their jurisdictions to safeguard population welfare, reduce mortality, prevent epidemic outbreaks, and enhance overall health outcomes.

Diethylene glycol—an industrial solvent capable of causing nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, blindness, renal failure, and often death—has been identified for more than a century as a contaminant in various pediatric and adult formulations across all five continents.

The threat to public health extends beyond this toxic contaminant to include the falsification or imitation of genuine medicinal products—such as antimalarials and vaccines—which have led to devastating public health tragedies.

Although international pharmacovigilance databases can facilitate analysis of safety reports and current drug‐safety trends, this information remains inaccessible to the public and independent researchers in Argentina, thereby hindering a comprehensive study of both past and present challenges.

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Dietilenglicol y Los Principales Adulterantes de Medicamentos y Drogas