/oss/taxonomy/term/1081/all en /oss/article/medical-critical-thinking/fake-drugs-real-problems <p>We are drowning in fraud. Simply defined, fraud is intentional deception, usually for monetary gain. We have become used to robo-calls telling us that we have been subjected to a tax audit and had better call the given number to clear things up. We have learned to dismiss messages from some unfortunate soul supposedly stuck in a foreign country who is in in need of funds to get home. Such scams are annoying, but at least not life threatening. The same cannot be said for counterfeit medications, an immense problem with an estimated global annual worth in excess of $100 billion!</p><p> </p> Wed, 31 May 2023 20:00:08 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 9527 at /oss /oss/article/did-you-know/history-counterfeiting <p>Counterfeiting of coins has a long history. No less a personage than Isaac Newton took this bull by the horns. Late in his career he became Master of the Mint and obsessed about counterfeiters. He even designed coinage to stymie the criminals. But it was Joseph Black, Professor of Chemistry at Glasgow University who in the 18<sup>th</sup> century uncovered one of the cleverest counterfeiting schemes. One of Black’s main contributions to chemistry was the realization that carbon dioxide was given off when calcium carbonate was heated.</p> Thu, 15 Nov 2018 17:00:00 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 7448 at /oss