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Prosecutors Say Pharmacies Gouging on Cold Medicine

Pharmacies are doubling retail prices for anti-virus and cold medicine amid the widening swine flu epidemic, investigators said Friday.

The Prosecutor General’s Office, which conducted a country-wide investigation, found that pharmacies and wholesalers in the “majority of the regions” are raising retail prices as much as 100 percent and creating artificial shortages to spur demand, the agency said in a statement.

“Those violations are widespread and systematic,” First Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Buksman said on Vesti-24. While violators face high fees, license revocation and criminal charges under Russian law, “these measures are obviously not enough,” Buksman said.

President Dmitry Medvedev on Nov. 9 ordered the prosecutors and the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service to conduct a criminal probe of pharmacies that are “taking advantage of the flu epidemics.” Russia has more than 11,600 confirmed cases of swine flu, according to data posted on Health and Social Development Ministry’s web sites. Health officials said Friday that the spread of swine flu has reached “epidemic” proportions in 22 cities and 54 regions of the country.

Pharmacy Chain 36.6, Russia’s largest drug retailer, was also probed by the prosecutors, according to spokeswoman Irina Lavrova. She declined to comment further.

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