Fake report by ‘London Times’ apparently ordered either internally or externally, warns PM’s spox

London Times website has published disinformation falsely accusing the Armenian government of a conspiracy with ‘Western pharma companies,’ the Prime Minister’s Office said.

Furthermore, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has ordered law enforcement agencies to look into the report and give a legal assessment, his spokesperson Nazeli Baghdasaryan said in a statement.

“A website called London Times has made an explicitly fake claim in its report ascribing “secret agreements with European pharmaceutical companies” to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and high-ranking representatives of the government. At the instruction of the Prime Minister, this article has been sent to law enforcement agencies to give a legal assessment.

But now already we find it necessary to clarify that there are no persons engaged in pharmaceutical business in neither the prime minister's entourage nor the entourage of other high-ranking officials mentioned in the report. No negotiation of the nature mentioned in the publication with any company has taken place. No agreement or contract mentioned in the publication exists and couldn’t have existed.

It is obvious that the emergence of this publication could have been ordered either externally for inciting domestic disturbances, or internally, for countering the government’s efforts aimed at setting lawfulness and clear traceability in the pharmaceutical market and ending illegal circulation of medications.

It is possible that both options are valid simultaneously. Either way it is obvious that the introduction of the mandatory system of electronic prescription for dispensing medicine is an extreme necessity, in order for any medicine, its importer, prescribing doctor and substantiation for prescription for any patient to be traceable and unaltered. The existence of such a system will make any possibility for medicine smuggling or unsubstantiated prescription to patients extremely difficult, if not impossible,” Baghdasaryan said.