 The World Bank and other groups say about 40 percent of the drugs in parts of Africa and South America are either counterfeit or of poor quality. Experts say the use of such medicines can lead to treatment failure and even death. Experts working to stop this counterfeit drug traffic met recently in Washington. Louise Shelley heads the Terrorism Transnational Crime and Corruption Center at George Mason University in Virginia. We're focusing much more on narcotics trafficking rather than on counterfeits that can do harm to many more individuals than consume illicit drugs. She says only an organized international effort can deal with this kind of organized crime. I think WHO, I think the law enforcement community, I think consumer organizations, civil society, everybody has a role in demanding greater quality control. You have no assurance of the safety, efficacy or quality of those products. Margaret Hamburg heads the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA controls the safety of drugs and food products in the United States. Recently, the FDA took action against thousands of internet businesses selling illegal medical products. Dr. Patrick Lucalé is with the United States Pharmacopia, an organization that sets quality controls for medicines. He says there must be an international effort. Even the United States, 80 percent of active ingredients come from either China or India into the U.S. And so U.S. companies are vulnerable. In India, you have about 10,000 manufacturing companies. So although the Indian regulators are making investments, it's difficult to catch up. Industry expert Andreas Seiter says many countries need to strengthen their rules. The World Health Organization's Michael Bates says many health experts do not understand the problem. This is quite a complex international trade and we need greater information on the scale and the scope and the harm and the economic damage that has been done by this issue to convince those policymakers to commit resources to tackling it. I'm Christopher Cruz.