Parents who look for brand-name baby formula at the grocery store might pick up the real thing or, as some shoppers recently found, they could end up with a counterfeit. "Lately, it's just like when you take things off the shelf, you really never know what you're getting," one parent said.

Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration uncovered a variety of scams involving baby formula. In one case, generic formula was passed off as Similac brand. In other instances, legitimate formula was bought at discount prices and resold for substantial profits. Nutritional products for the elderly such as "Ensure Plus" also were resold and relabeled, hiding, among other things, the fact that the product's expiration date had passed.

The FDA believes it has put a stop to those operations and that no one was harmed. The agency has issued an arrest warrant for Mohammed Mostafah, a baby formula distributor, and charged him with counterfeiting. But similar scams are likely, and officials are warning people to be watchful.

The International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition, a group representing many big brand-name products, said technology today makes it possible to copy not just Rolexes, but the labels for everything from Halls' cough drops to canned artichoke bottoms, as well. Fortunately, the group says U.S. Customs agents intercepted all of those products before they made their way to store shelves. "They were found in very unsanitary conditions. Some of them were unwrapped. Unknown levels of bacteria, unknown ingredients," said the Coalition's John Bliss.

In one case, phony Borden's Eagle brand labels were stuck on packages of almond bark candy, a product Borden doesn't even make. In another case, some shoppers bought fake Head & Shoulders shampoo that was blue like the real thing, "but it didn't really quite smell like Head & Shoulders shampoo and (it) was actually a combination, it appears, of several shampoos," Pendergast said.

The FDA warns both stores and consumers to know who they're buying from. And if they suspect something is wrong, they should contact the maker or the FDA.

Instead of waiting for the complaints and problems to arise, administrations and manufacturers can use Pretection's services to prevent these kind of life-threatening activities. Pretection can monitor the Internet world wide and in any language to detect and investigate sites offering products that might be fake or in any other way illegal. A comprehensive analysis of the site will be made and published on our "Extranet". This will make it possible to access this information anywhere in the world and act immediately, preventing any harm to the public health.