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In China, Desperate Patients Smuggle Drugs or Make Their Own

nytimes.com

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Re: In China, Desperate Patients Smuggle Drugs or Make Their Own

#21

Post by seanmcdirmid »

stcredzero wrote: post #6
SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #2

>”You just hope the sellers have a conscience.” Yeah, having dealt with Chinese vendors and mfgs for years that is a scary scenario. The whole culture of trust / fairness / honesty is very different from the west. Dealt with our products being knocked off for years, wouldn’t want to buy cancer meds ever!

Yeah, having dealt with Chinese vendors and mfgs for years that is a scary scenario. I've met contractors who did extensive work for businessmen in the US, who then turned around and told the contractor, "You want to be paid? Sue me!" The whole culture of trust / fairness / honesty is very different from the west. Is it really that different? There are some people who are good and some people who end up being opportu…

Imagine if google was in the business of faking cancer treatments with Army hospitals. That would basically be Baidu and the PLA.

Re: In China, Desperate Patients Smuggle Drugs or Make Their Own

#22

Post by meds2010 »

gpm wrote: post #15
markdown wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is "they"? This is a nation of almost 1.4 billion people. There are more unarmed civilians (including children) murdered by US police every year than all deaths from the Chinese milk scandal combined. Would that make it reasonable to state that "All US citizens have proved they have no conscience"? In any case, the Chinese milk scandal pales in comparison to what Nestle did: https://www.businessinsider.com/nestle…

I don't understand the complaint in that article? It seems to basically be that: - Nestle made a baby formula - They marketed it heavily to poor people in the third world. - Poor people in the third world proceed to dilute the formula with more than the recommended amount of water to save money (and the article does not say that this was at Nestle's prompting), and as a result didn't feed their babies enough. Maybe l…

the numbers are definitely worse. "millions" dead? that sounds pretty bad. Not sure how true that is. It certainly isn't clear. But the idea that a western corporation will do something like changing a product to save money, or not recalling a product knowing that someone out there will die... do you really need to be given examples of that?

Re: In China, Desperate Patients Smuggle Drugs or Make Their Own

#23

Post by NotANaN »

markdown wrote: post #9
NotANaN wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They proved they have no conscience with the Chinese baby formula scandal[1]: putting melamine in baby formula to save a little money, knowing that doing so would be poisoning infant children. "A spokesman said the scale of the problem proved it was 'clearly not an isolated accident, [but] a large-scale intentional activity to deceive consumers for simple, basic, short-term profits.'" [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

Who is "they"? This is a nation of almost 1.4 billion people. There are more unarmed civilians (including children) murdered by US police every year than all deaths from the Chinese milk scandal combined. Would that make it reasonable to state that "All US citizens have proved they have no conscience"? In any case, the Chinese milk scandal pales in comparison to what Nestle did: https://www.businessinsider.com/nestle…

> Who is "they"?

From the parent comment: "Chinese vendors and mfgs"

Re: In China, Desperate Patients Smuggle Drugs or Make Their Own

#24

Post by justicezyx »

stcredzero wrote: post #20
justicezyx wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, as I mention, it's more. The example I cite here is well-knwon, and yet it exists still today. Can you imagine western countries allow this to happen regularly?

As time goes on, people adjust to the rule of law and societal standards. What happens in the west is that the "optics" are far better. Much of the corruption remains, however. Unfortunately, I think that's baked into reality and human nature.

No objections.

Just to point out the status-quo.

Re: In China, Desperate Patients Smuggle Drugs or Make Their Own

#25

Post by jasonbarrah »

markdown wrote: post #9
NotANaN wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They proved they have no conscience with the Chinese baby formula scandal[1]: putting melamine in baby formula to save a little money, knowing that doing so would be poisoning infant children. "A spokesman said the scale of the problem proved it was 'clearly not an isolated accident, [but] a large-scale intentional activity to deceive consumers for simple, basic, short-term profits.'" [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

Who is "they"? This is a nation of almost 1.4 billion people. There are more unarmed civilians (including children) murdered by US police every year than all deaths from the Chinese milk scandal combined. Would that make it reasonable to state that "All US citizens have proved they have no conscience"? In any case, the Chinese milk scandal pales in comparison to what Nestle did: https://www.businessinsider.com/nestle…

This is just one example. There is also fentanyl, knock off prescription medication, and I've even gotten fake sex toys from China.

The point is that stealing, lying, and poisoning Americans is part of Chinese culture. And what's worse is it appears that their state department is egging them on.

So sure, there are Americans that do greedy things and have externalities. The problem is, it's China's stated national policy.

Re: In China, Desperate Patients Smuggle Drugs or Make Their Own

#26

Post by jumelles »

Scoundreller wrote: post #13
SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #2

>”You just hope the sellers have a conscience.” Yeah, having dealt with Chinese vendors and mfgs for years that is a scary scenario. The whole culture of trust / fairness / honesty is very different from the west. Dealt with our products being knocked off for years, wouldn’t want to buy cancer meds ever!

The trick would be to buy the cancer meds, then send them to another lab and have them determine what it is (without telling them in advance). Extra points if you get the lab to quantify purity instead of just finding presence. Lots of pharma APIs are manufactured in China or India.

This is exactly why the FDA can and will inspect facilities in foreign countries.

Re: In China, Desperate Patients Smuggle Drugs or Make Their Own

#27

Post by spectrum1234 »

Scoundreller wrote: post #17
averros wrote: post #11

That's what you get if your governments give monopoly on making drugs to huge corporations. Patens and enormously costly "approvals" (rather than strict liability) are the root of the problem.

I don't think we'd have 99% of these novel clinical compounds if it weren't for patents. As for approvals, I don't know why we have each country doing its own approvals, instead of international groups that individuals can choose whether they want to trust or not. Are Europeans sufficiently different than Chinese, Indians, Australians, Canadians, Germans or Americans to warrant independent safety approvals? If they'r…

Why wouldn't these compounds evolve to be open source? Barriers to entry wouldn't be billions in R&D if every stepping stone was open sourced.

Re: In China, Desperate Patients Smuggle Drugs or Make Their Own

#28

Post by imjustsaying »

stcredzero wrote: post #6
SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #2

>”You just hope the sellers have a conscience.” Yeah, having dealt with Chinese vendors and mfgs for years that is a scary scenario. The whole culture of trust / fairness / honesty is very different from the west. Dealt with our products being knocked off for years, wouldn’t want to buy cancer meds ever!

Yeah, having dealt with Chinese vendors and mfgs for years that is a scary scenario. I've met contractors who did extensive work for businessmen in the US, who then turned around and told the contractor, "You want to be paid? Sue me!" The whole culture of trust / fairness / honesty is very different from the west. Is it really that different? There are some people who are good and some people who end up being opportu…

>Is it really that different? There are some people who are good and some people who end up being opportunistic in evil ways. The more I learn about differences across cultures, the more I conclude that the differences are always ones of degree, and the differences are made more visible due to the cultural contrasts.

Exactly. When you have a culture that more often accepts scams as necessary to succeed and another culture that shuns them, you will probably see disparities in the percentages of people in those cultures who are willing to scam. Ostracism is a powerful deterrent.

Re: In China, Desperate Patients Smuggle Drugs or Make Their Own

#29

Post by darawk »

averros wrote: post #11

That's what you get if your governments give monopoly on making drugs to huge corporations. Patens and enormously costly "approvals" (rather than strict liability) are the root of the problem.

...and what do you think you get if you don't do those things? The answer is no drugs at all.

Re: In China, Desperate Patients Smuggle Drugs or Make Their Own

#30

Post by pkaye »

averros wrote: post #11

That's what you get if your governments give monopoly on making drugs to huge corporations. Patens and enormously costly "approvals" (rather than strict liability) are the root of the problem.

What country has had success with using the strict liability approach?
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