Substandard and falsified medicines are major global health challenges that cause unnecessary morbidity and mortality around the world and threaten to undermine recent progress against infectious diseases by facilitating the emergence of drug resistance.

In March 2012, the French government issued an emergency ban on a genetically modified strain of maize (corn) made by Monsanto “to protect the environment.”

The introduction of ecolabels, seals and green lists and guides has prompted major changes in industry and consumer buying practices. What progress has been made in addressing consumer concerns about chemicals in foods, packaging and household products?

In the past decade major problems with Chinese-made food and drugs has led to thousands of deaths, mostly in China itself, but many in rich countries too, including at least 150 deaths in the U.S. from counterfeits of the drug heparin. And while fake drugs are the largest concern for foreigners, within China the greatest fear is over milk formula.

The Indian Supreme Court’s decision on Gleevec will surely help some patients seeking affordable treatment (“US should tighten rules for patenting changes to drugs,” Editorial, April 8), but there is no guarantee that local companies can reproduce a drug that is as safe or effective as the original, especially when they have no data-sharing agreement with the company that designed it.

Poorly manufactured and fraudulent medicines kill thousands of people around the world each year. For infectious diseases like malaria and HIV, shoddy medicines also accelerate drug resistance and dramatically alter the course of epidemics. With few new drugs under development, recent progress against these major killers in the poorest countries is precarious.

As a general proposition, the U.S. has superior medical outcomes for conditions in which medicine makes a difference.

According to the US Food and Drug Administration, pharmaceutical companies in developing countries such as India are increasingly falsifying data about the quality of their medicines. One solution to this quality control dilemma is to enact sanctions against companies that fail to provide quality products.