Dangerous Fakes

1. Which Fakes are more likely to be Dangerous?

Ensuring that products available on markets are safe is a keen concern of governments, which have set up legislation and created regulatory bodies to oversee markets and identify unsafe, or dangerous, products. In many countries, responsibility for the market oversight is assigned to multiple agencies, with each covering different sets of products. Food and drugs, for example, are sometimes treated by one agency while automotive and other consumer products are treated by others. When dangerous products are detected, they are generally subject to recalls or other measures to eliminate the potential risk to consumers.

The agencies responsible for overseeing product safety generally focus on the safety requirements of the products, without specifically focusing on the counterfeit angle. Counterfeit items raise important challenges as they masquerade as genuine products but are not subject to the same production scrutiny; they therefore free ride on the performance and testing done on the genuine products. While the genuine products may be considered safe, the counterfeit items might thus have undetected defects that raise health and safety concerns. Overall, US authorities have deemed automotive parts, electronics, safety equipment, prescription drugs, and cosmetics as the most dangerous counterfeits due to the potential threats they present to public safety and health.1 EUIPO found in its qualitative study on risks posed by counterfeits to consumers that in particular goods aimed at children could present serious risks when they are counterfeited, including toys, childcare items and children’s clothing2.

As noted above, genuine products can also pose health, safety and environmental threats, which is why regulatory bodies are actively engaged in market surveillance. While, in general products may be considered safe when they are manufactured, subsequent handling can pose problems. This can happen for example, if goods are illicitly diverted outside legitimate supply chains, and are subsequently improperly stored or transported. For instance, medicines often require transport and storage in special, temperature-controlled conditions in order to maintain their therapeutic value.

Apart from pharmaceuticals, many other products can pose health, safety and environmental risks, even when they do not necessarily violate IP rights. These would include for example substandard goods that fail to meet either quality standards or specifications, or both. It also includes unregistered or unlicensed products that have not undergone evaluation and/or approval by national or regional regulatory authorities for the market in which they are marketed/distributed or used. As an interviewed enforcement officer noted “Counterfeit products are just a sea on a big ocean of dangerous products”. This study takes note of the broad scope of potentially dangerous counterfeit products, using existing concepts.

Two important issues should be kept in mind in the context of the scope of the study.

First, even though counterfeit products are often substandard, it is not their quality that determines whether or not they are counterfeit. In fact, some counterfeit goods may seem to be of good quality, although interviews with enforcement and industry experts indicate such cases are rare.

Second, counterfeits have a variety of socio-economic effects on economies, threatening legitimate businesses, governments, consumers and the society as a whole (OECD/EUIPO, 2016[2]); (OECD/EUIPO, 2019[3]), (OECD/EUIPO, 2021b[1]). This study focuses on health, safety and environmental risks posed by such goods, which is only a subset of the overall threat posed by counterfeits.

To establish the scope of counterfeits that can pose health, safety or environmental harm one can take several approaches.

• One looks at all products that need to meet product specific health and safety standard, before entering the market.

• A more narrow approach, looks at specific product recalls and alerts, and identify the product categories that were most frequently subject of such safety incidents.

Due to lack of systematic checks of actual safety, health and environmental risks of seized counterfeit products, the available information is scarce and based only on anecdotal evidence. Notably, it is not sufficient for carrying out the actual risk analysis for the broad set of counterfeit products available in the seizures data. The main assumption in this report is therefore that counterfeit products are less likely to meet the product specific health, safety and environmental standards than the goods put on the market by the original rights’ holders and therefore they pose greater safety risks. Further to this assumption, the term counterfeit dangerous goods should be understood as referring to the counterfeits:

• in those products’ categories that need to meet product specific safety standards and/or are under the scope of the US Food and Drugs Administration and/or are subject of the draft United States bill – the SHOP SAFE ACT (the broad scope);

• in product categories of foodstuffs, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and categories that are most frequently subject of safety incidents as evidenced by product recalls and alerts (the focused scope).

Product safety requirements, norms and standards

As noted above, to ensure the free movement and safety of products in the EU, the New Legislative Framework (NLF)3 , as the general framework for EU product legislation in the non-food area, was adopted in 2008. The NLF was built on the New Approach, which restricted the content of legislation to “essential requirements” leaving the technical details to European harmonised standards. Products manufactured in compliance with harmonised standards benefit from a presumption of conformity with the corresponding essential requirements of the applicable legislation.

Regulation (EC) No 765/2008 established the legal basis for accreditation and market surveillance and consolidated the meaning of the CE marking, thus filling an existing void. This Regulation is partially replaced by the new Market Surveillance Regulation4. Decision No 768/2008/EC sets up a model to be used in preparing and revising Union harmonisation legislation with the aim to update, harmonise and consolidate the various technical instruments already used in existing Union harmonisation legislation: definitions, criteria for the designation and notification of conformity assessment bodies, rules for the notification process, the conformity assessment procedures (modules) and the rules for their use, the safeguard mechanisms, the obligations of the economic operators and traceability requirements. More than 20 pieces of Union legislation are aligned today with the NLF5.

In line with the OECD Recommendation on Consumer Product Safety6, in some jurisdictions a general safety requirement is provided for in legislation, mandating all products placed on the market to be safe, indistinctly of whether they infringe an intellectual property right or not7. Standards can be developed by industry or standardisation bodies and applicable to a given product

The goal of this study is to determine the potential scope of products with elevated risks, not to present an exhaustive list of the agencies which are involved and the challenges they are facing in identifying dangerous products. Consequently, this section will look only at few areas of governance efforts, namely:

• Harmonization of product quality standardization in the European Union.

• The activities of the US Food and Drug Administration.

• Discussion in the United States surrounding the SHOP SAFE Act.

Harmonised standards in the EU

The safety of products placed on the EU market is regulated by the General Product Safety Directive and specific provisions of the European Union legislation harmonising the conditions for the marketing of products (European Union harmonisation legislation). The General Product Safety Directive sets out a general product safety requirement, applicable to all products and risks not covered by specific harmonisation legislation. The General Product Safety and Union harmonisation legislation provide for the establishment of European standards cited in the Official Journal of the EU, granting a presumption of safety to products complying with them. These are European standards developed by a recognised European Standards Organisation: CEN (European Committee for Standardization), CENELEC (European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization), or ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute). These standards are drafted following a request from the European Commission to one of these organisations. Manufacturers, other economic operators, or conformity assessment bodies can use harmonised standards to demonstrate that products, services, or processes comply with relevant EU legislation.

The CE marking indicates that a product has been successfully assessed to meet safety, health, and environmental protection requirements. Products that require CE marking must undergo quality checks (by the economic operator or in some cases by a third party) and must necessarily be marked with the CE logo prior to entering the European market. This includes such goods as machinery, toys, electrical equipment, medical devices and construction products8.

In the EU context, apart from the Harmonized Products system, the work carried out by EU agencies such as ECHA (European Chemicals Agency), EMA (European Medicines Agency) and EFSA (European Foods Safety Agency) is particularly relevant to understanding the risks associated with chemical, medicinal and food products.

US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

The FDA is responsible for regulating food products, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals that can pose health and safety risks.

While the specific programs for safety regulation carried out by the FDA vary widely by the type of product, the common focus is the potential risks entailed by the goods. The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health, and hence, the scope of its work is a good indication of goods that, if counterfeited, could pose significant health, safety and environmental risks to consumers.

The FDA focus is on food products, dietary supplements, prescription and over-the-counter pharmaceutical medications, vaccines, biopharmaceuticals, medical devices, cosmetics, animal foods and feed, and veterinary products.

In some areas, where possible risks can be pronounced, FDA regulation is far-reaching. For example, for prescription drugs, FDA’s regulation deals with testing, manufacturing, labelling, advertising, marketing, efficacy, and safety issues. The most rigorous requirements apply to new molecular entities (i.e. drugs that are not based on existing medications). For other products, such as cosmetics, regulation can be less restrictive, focusing on the accuracy of information on labelling and on the product safety.

US SHOP SAFE Act of 2021

Under the proposed US SHOP SAFE Act, an electronic commerce platform would, in certain circumstances be liable for infringement of a registered trademark by a third-party seller of goods when those goods implicate the health and safety of consumers.9 The Act further defines the goods concerned as:

“… goods the use of which can lead to illness, disease, injury, serious adverse event, allergic reaction, or death if produced without compliance with all applicable Federal, State, and local health and safety regulations and industry-designated testing, safety, quality, certification, manufacturing, packaging, and labelling standards.”

The scope of the products that would be covered under the legislation was addressed at a May 2021 hearing on the bill, and in a number of written submissions to the House Judiciary Committee on the 2021 bill, as well its 2020 precursor.10 A group of associations representing a broad range of product sectors11 submitted a joint letter that endorses the emphasis on consumer health and safety as a priority, while arguing that a broader scope that would take other adverse effects on the economy would be beneficial.12 In a separate filing, the Transnational Association to Combat Illicit Trade (TRACIT) suggested that legislation should avoid creating categories that may ultimately require the judicial system to establish parameters around the vague concept of “safety and health.”13 Table 1.1 summarizes a list of products coined during the discussion on the Act.

Table 1.1. Counterfeit products with health and safety implications

(list made during the public debates on the US SHOP SAFE Act)

Product	Associated risks
Beauty products	Bacterial contamination; inadequate or missing preservative systems; toxic/hazardous ingredients (chemical and biological hazards, heavy metals); non-disclosed or high levels of allergens; presence of banned ingredients; presence of mold; absence or decreased levels of drug and/or sanitizing/disinfectant active ingredients; electrical and/or burn hazards.
Disinfecting/sanitizing products
Feminine care products
Food and beverages
Medicines
Oral care products
Pet products
Children’s products	Noncompliance with safety standards; toxic/hazardous/flammable ingredients.
Cleaning/laundry products	Toxic/hazardous/banned ingredients.
Construction products	Fire/electrical hazards; critical engineering failures.
Digital/communication products, replacement parts/equipment or networks	Fire/electrical hazards; noncompliance with manufacturing/safety standards; failure at critical moments.
Electrical appliances/equipment and replacement parts	Noncompliance with manufacturing/safety standards; fire/electrical hazards; toxic/hazardous chemicals.
Furniture	Noncompliance with manufacturing/safety standards; toxic/hazardous/flammable ingredients.
Jewelry, luxury goods, textiles	Allergic reactions; treated with chemicals that can be hazardous, flammable, toxic.
Nicotine containing products	Toxic/hazardous/banned ingredients.
Office supplies	Toxic/hazardous chemicals; equipment damage.
Personal health care equipment, medical devices	Noncompliance with safety standards; fail at critical moments; long term health effects due to toxic/hazardous/flammable ingredients (chemical, biological, bacterial, heavy metals).
Personal protective equipment
Product packaging
Pesticides	Toxic/hazardous chemicals; environmental impact.
Sports equipment	Noncompliance with safety standards; fail at critical moments; toxic/hazardous ingredients.
Transportation and replacement parts	Fire hazards; system severely impacted; compromised data transmission of confidential/critical, Personal identifiable, healthcare related, educational, military information.
Documentation	Fraudulent access.

Source: (TRACIT, n.d.[4]).

The Intellectual Property Law Section of the American Bar Association weighed in on the 2020 version of the bill, voicing its support for the legislation, on the presumption that the definition of goods that have implications for the health and safety of consumers would be broadly interpreted.14 The Section noted the importance of acknowledging that there will be a grey area of goods that do not fall clearly into the category of goods implicating health and safety. Clothing and toys, it is pointed out, are not goods generally presumed to be a threat to the health or safety of consumers, but there are instances when certain clothing might contain harmful chemicals or toys may contain lead or other prohibited chemicals. The scope of the legislation, it is argued, should capture these situations. The risk that some products could be dangerous, however, could, it is pointed out, and result in the need for e-commerce platforms to apply the proposed enhanced practices more broadly to all products to ensure they would not be held liable for contributory infringement.

Product recalls and alerts

Many countries have established databases or information systems for authorities to exchange urgent alerts on dangerous products, which are also notably used to inform interested parties, including consumers, about product safety issues and product recalls. Such databases can be useful for flagging products and product areas where health and safety issues are of particular concern.

OECD GlobalRecalls portal

The OECD has played a major role in bringing the information on recalls together, in a multilingual platform. Its GlobalRecalls portal, launched in 2012, collects information on product recalls being issued around the world, on a regular basis.15 The database currently contains more than 33,000 notifications, from 47 jurisdictions. More than 15 000 notifications originate from the EU/European Economic Area countries. Where possible, the notifications have been placed in one of 35 product categories. For the years 2019-21, automotive products accounted for the largest share of the notifications, followed by toys and games and electrical supplies (Table 1.2).

Table 1.2. Product recalls contained in the OECD’s GlobalRecalls portal, 2019-21

Product group	Number of notifications	Share of total (%)
Automotive	1,436	22
Toys/games	1,233	19
Electrical supplies	693	10
Clothing	480	7
Sports equipment	405	6
Household/office furniture/furnishings	357	5
Beauty/personal care/hygiene	290	4
Personal accessories	273	4
Safety/protection-DIY	153	2
Home appliances	149	2
Plumbing/heating/ventilation/air conditioning	147	2
Healthcare	145	2
Stationery/office machinery/occasion supplies	135	2
Lawn/garden supplies	110	2
Other	599	9
Total	6,605	100

Note: Total including 3,625 notifications which were unclassified.

Source: (OECD, n.d.[5])

The scope of the reported recalls, it should be noted, varies, by jurisdiction. Data for the European Union, for example, which reports for its Member States, does not include food products, nor does US data, which only covers products under the purview of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Similarly, Japan’s notifications do not include food products, vehicles and pharmaceuticals (including cosmetics) and Canadian notifications exclude a number of products, including cosmetics, vehicles and drugs. Getting a complete overview of products subject to recalls, thus requires consideration of multiple databases. In the case of the United States, for example, in addition to the database operated by the CPSC, those maintained by the FDA on food and drugs (Table 1.3) and the NHSTA on automotive products (Table 1.4) would need to be consulted to obtain a more complete overview of recalls and safety alerts.

Table 1.3. FDA product recalls, withdrawals and safety alerts, 2019-2021

Product group	Number of notifications	Share of total (%)
Food and beverages	779	63
Drugs	275	22
Animal and veterinary	97	8
Medical devices	46	4
Dietary supplements	33	3
Cosmetics	12	1
Tobacco	2	(1)
Biologics	1	(1)
Total	1,837	100(2)

Notes: ¹⁾ Less than 0.5% ; ⁽²⁾ Total does not add due to rounding.

Source: (FDA, n.d.[6]).

Table 1.4. NHSTA recalls and safety issues, 2019-21

Product group	Number of notifications	Share of total (%)
Equipment	505	17
Electrical system	370	13
Service brakes	244	8
Airbags	217	7
Fuel system	183	6
Suspension	177	6
Exterior lighting	175	6
Structure	163	6
Steering	149	5
Power train	136	5
Other	621	21
Total	2,940	100

Source: (NHSTA, n.d.[7]).

EU Rapid Alert System for Dangerous Products (Safety Gate)

Another example of an alert system for unsafe products identified on the market is the EU Rapid Alert System for Dangerous products (Safety Gate), which was established under EU’s Directive 2001/95/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 3 December 2001 on general product safety (GPSD). The Guidelines for management of this rapid alert system are defined in Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2019/417.

The directive defines dangerous products indirectly, as any that do not meet its definition of a “safe product” (Box 1.1). When a measure is taken against an unsafe product, Member States are required to issue a notification in a Safety Gate. The notifications distinguish between:16

• Measures taken against products posing a serious risk (“Article 12 notification”);

• Measures taken against products posing a serious risk requiring emergency measures;

• Measures taken against products posing less than serious risk (“Article 11 notification”);

• Other notifications (“for information”). These concern other cases falling outside the 3 categories mentioned above, mostly because the information is not complete enough to ensure the required follow up by enforcement network authorities of the Safety Gate network.

Box 1.1. EU definition of safe products

"Safe product" shall mean any product which, under normal or reasonably foreseeable conditions of use including duration and, where applicable, putting into service, installation and maintenance requirements, does not present any risk or only the minimum risks compatible with the product's use, considered to be acceptable and consistent with a high level of protection for the safety and health of persons, taking into account the following points, in particular:

1. the characteristics of the product, including its composition, packaging, instructions for assembly and, where applicable, for installation and maintenance;

2. the effect on other products, where it is reasonably foreseeable that it will be used with other products;

3. the presentation of the product, the labelling, any warnings and instructions for its use and disposal and any other indication or information regarding the product

4. the categories of consumers at risk when using the product, in particular children and the elderly.

Source: Directive 2001/95/EC.

The Commission implementing decision (EU) 2019/417 lays down guidelines for the operation of the rapid alert system Safety Gate. It defines the risk of a product by combining the probability of damage occurring during the lifetime of a product with the severity of a certain injury caused by the product. Severity of injuries is set in 4 levels (1 to 4) and depends on the type of injury at stake. Four categories of risk are established:

• Serious;

• High;

• Medium;

• Low.

This results in the following table that shows the risk level from the combination of the severity of injury and its probability.

Table 1.5. Risk table

Probability of damage during the foreseeable lifetime of a product	Severity of injury
	1	2	3	4
>50%	High risk	Serious risk	Serious risk	Serious risk
>1/10	Medium risk	Serious risk	Serious risk	Serious risk
>1/100	Medium risk	Serious risk	Serious risk	Serious risk
>1/1,000	Low risk	High risk	Serious risk	Serious risk
>1/10,000	Low risk	Medium risk	High risk	Serious risk
>1/100,000	Low risk	Low risk	Medium risk	High risk
>1/1,000,000	Low risk	Low risk	Low risk	Medium risk
<1/1,000,000	Low risk	Low risk	Low risk	Low risk

Source: Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2019/417.

Within the Safety Gate notification system, authorities are asked to indicate whether a product subject to a measure is counterfeit, or not. In 2019, the EUIPO conducted a study of the 191 notifications which were flagged as pertaining to counterfeit products during the 2010-17 period (EUIPO, 2019[8]).17 The analysis revealed that:

• Some 97% of recorded dangerous counterfeit goods were assessed as posing a serious risk.

• Toys were the most popular type of product followed by clothing, textiles and fashion items. The end users of 80% of the goods reported to be dangerous and counterfeit were children; the products concerned included toys, childcare items and children’s clothing.

• The most common reported danger (32%) was related to exposure to hazardous chemicals and toxins that could cause acute or long-term health issues from immediate or long-term exposure.

• Some 24% of the dangerous products recorded as counterfeit posed more than one danger to users.

• The causes of the risks identified included poorly constructed products, use of inferior supplies and components, and the lack of understanding of regulations or safety mechanisms.

• The analysis of the counterfeits uncovered 225 reported health and safety risks, led by chemical risk (32% of the total), followed by strangulation (17.3%), injuries (from mechanical dangers) (16.0%), electric shock (6.7%), damage to hearing (4.0%) and fire (4.0%).

A legislative proposal on a General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) revising the GPSD was published in June 2021 and is being discussed in the European Parliament and Council. Stakeholders have been involved in the review process, with brand owner organisations proposing that the scope of the directive be expanded to include counterfeit unsafe products. The Commission pointed out that counterfeit products are already addressed in EU legislation, and unsafe products are in any case covered in the GPSD and in the proposed GPSR regardless of their authenticity. Even though counterfeit products can pose safety risks, it was noted, the safety of a given product has to be assessed and determined on the basis of a risk assessment. In this respect, the fundamental rule set out in the GPSD and GPSR proposal according to which all products placed on the EU market must be safe ensures that both authentic and counterfeit unsafe products are tackled.

Table 1.6 summarizes a list of products categories with the main risks identified.

Table 1.6. Counterfeit products with health and safety implications

Product (HS code)	Most frequent risk
Foodstuffs (02-21)	Microbiological, chemical
Pharmaceutical products (30)	Microbiological, chemical
Perfumery and cosmetics (33)	Chemical, microbiological
Soap (34)	Microbiological, chemical
Clothing, knitted or crotched (61)	Injuries, Strangulation, Chemical, Choking
Other made-up textile articles (63)	Injuries, Strangulation, Chemical, Choking
Jewellery (71)	Chemical
Electrical machinery and electronics (85)	Electric shock, Fire, Environment, Burns
Watches (91)	Chemical
Toys and games (95)	Chemical, choking, injuries, environment, damage to hearing, burns, strangulation
Vehicle parts (87)	Injuries, Fire

Overall the list contains a large number goods’ categories. Even though, at the first glance some of them might seem counterintuitive, they pose serious health and safety threats to consumers.

For example, cases related to jewellery are reported to contain such toxic substances as heavy metals like lead and cadmium, as well as PVC and other plastics. This is aggravated by the fact that children can put jewellery in their mouths.

Other, somehow less intuitive examples, refer to health risks posed by watches and clothing. For watches, the main area of concern are dangerous chemicals and toxic heavy metals used for production of strap and watch case. For clothing, there are numerous instances of objects containing toxic materials, or made in a ways that poses risks of chocking or fire. For example, outfit for girls was described as posing: “a risk of strangulation and injuries for children because of the presence of drawstrings in the hood and waist area.”

Another category are “other made-up textile articles”. An example of a product from this category is a cushion cover that was made out of extremely toxic textile material containing dyes releasing the aromatic amine benzidine. When the product is in direct and prolonged contact with the skin, this aromatic amine may be absorbed by the skin causing cancer, cell mutations and affect reproduction.

Notes

← 1.  See www.ice.gov/features/dangers-counterfeit-items.

← 2.  See: https://euipo.europa.eu/tunnel-web/secure/webdav/guest/document_library/observatory/documents/reports/2019_Risks_Posed_by_Counterfeits_to_Consumers_Study/2019_Risks_Posed_by_Counterfeits_to_Consumers_Study.pdf

← 3.  Regulation (EC) No 765/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 July 2008 setting out the requirements for accreditation and market surveillance relating to the marketing of products and repealing Regulation (EEC) No 339/93 and Decision No 768/2008/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 July 2008 on a common framework for the marketing of products, and repealing Council Decision 93/465/EEC

← 4.  Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on market surveillance and compliance of products and amending Directive 2004/42/EC and Regulations (EC) No 765/2008 and (EU) No 305/2011, started to apply on 16 July 2021.

← 5.  There are more than 20 pieces of EU legislation aligned with the NLF. The areas concerned are toys; measuring instruments; recreational craft and personal watercraft; low voltage equipment; radio equipment; civil explosives; simple pressure vessels; medical devices; personal protective equipment; gas appliances; EU fertiling products.

← 6.  https://legalinstruments.oecd.org/en/instruments/OECD-LEGAL-0459

← 7.  This is the case for instance of the General Product Safety Directive applicable in the European Union (Directive 2001/95/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 3 December 2001 on general product safety).

← 8.  References to harmonised standards and other European standards published in the OJEU can be found on the webpage https://ec.europa.eu/growth/single-market/european-standards/harmonised-standards_en

← 9.  See www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3429.

← 10.  See www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/6058.

← 11.  The associations include the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies, Automotive Anti-Counterfeiting Council, American Apparel & Footwear Association,, Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, Communications Cable & Connectivity Association, Consumer Healthcare Products Association, Halloween Industry Association, Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association, Natural Products Association, Personal Care Products Council, TIC Council Americas, Toy Association, and Transnational Association to Combat Illicit Trade.

← 12.  See www.aafaglobal.org/AAFA/AAFA_News/2021_Letters_and_Comments/Multi_Association_Letter_in_Support_of_SHOP_SAFE_Act.aspx.

← 13.  See www.tracit.org/uploads/1/0/2/2/102238034/tracit_written_statement_on_h_shop_safe_act_may_27_2020.pdf.

← 14.  See www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/intellectual_property_law/advocacy/aba-ipl-comments-on-shop-safe-act-final.pdf.

← 15.  See https://globalrecalls.oecd.org/.

← 16.  Where complete information is not available in cases involving serious risk, a “Notification for information” can also be made under the Safety Gate system.

← 17.  Reporting the possible counterfeit character of products subject to notifications under Safety Gate is relatively low as notifying authorities often do not have the necessary information to identify fakes. Moreover, counterfeit products are, as a rule, destroyed when they are seized, generally without safety testing by national authorities.