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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

#31

Post by darawk »

meds2010 wrote: post #22
gpm wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Millions died because mother's diluted the formula, against the instructions of the company. How is that Nestle's fault?

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

#32

Post by pkaye »

spectrum1234 wrote: post #27
Scoundreller wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The real question is who will pay for testing drug safety and efficacy.

Take Auryxia which is literally ferric citrate. Its used by kidney patients to control phosphorus levels and boost iron. Why did it take so long to get tested and approved as a drug when the formula was "open source" for a long time? Well one company did the time and effort and suddenly it is considered a valuable drug. The value came from proving the safety and efficacy and someone has to be willing to fund it.

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

#33

Post by Scoundreller »

jumelles wrote: post #26
Scoundreller wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They'll inspect, but the buyer will always do their own verification.

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

#34

Post by autoexec »

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…

I'd heard part of the problem was that Nestlé lied to mothers to make them think they needed it, gave them enough for free that their own breast-milk dried up making them dependent on formula to feed their child at which point many were stuck with an expense they couldn't actually afford leading to things like diluting the formula. Certainly not as bad as outright poisoning formula, but a shitty thing in general to poverty stricken areas who were more than capable of feeding their own babies for free before Nestlé took advantage of them to take what little those mothers had.

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

#35

Post by remote_phone »

Sadly, the Chinese government has less incentive to let the poor survive. It’s a cold, heartless form of population control. There are government officials who have come to the conclusion that delaying or not providing drugs for things like cancer will eventually help keep the country stable financially. In a country the size of China, they simply can’t afford to let everyone live to 85.

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

#37

Post by star-trek-fleet »

remote_phone wrote: post #35

Sadly, the Chinese government has less incentive to let the poor survive. It’s a cold, heartless form of population control. There are government officials who have come to the conclusion that delaying or not providing drugs for things like cancer will eventually help keep the country stable financially. In a country the size of China, they simply can’t afford to let everyone live to 85.

They can.

It's just some shady semi-government-worker-semi-business-man who controls the important channel for extracting money, and usually they do not want poor people to live.

See for example: https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/China-s-Changshen...

Some companies produces fake vaccines and regulated the vaccine market to not allow imported vaccines.

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

#38

Post by Retric »

pkaye wrote: post #32
spectrum1234 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The real question is who will pay for testing drug safety and efficacy. Take Auryxia which is literally ferric citrate. Its used by kidney patients to control phosphorus levels and boost iron. Why did it take so long to get tested and approved as a drug when the formula was "open source" for a long time? Well one company did the time and effort and suddenly it is considered a valuable drug. The value came from provin…

Drug tests are not inherently that expensive. FDA trials run about 1% of the cost of each new drug. https://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2018/cost-of-clinic...

The long line of failed drugs are the real issue.

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

#39

Post by contingencies »

I used to run an outbound medical tourism consultancy in China. Another NYT China hitpiece. Fact: This is not limited to China, it is a global phenomenon driven by the extreme profiteering of big pharma. I have personally seen medical systems in other countries leak legitimate medicines on the open market through fake 'patients' at hospitals. In addition: China has WAY more drug companies than any other country, and largely freer distribution. You can often purchase foreign medicine in China without issue. India has stood up to the status quo with its forward-looking stance on generics. European big-pharma has been extremely vicious in the deployment of propaganda throughout Asia to discourage generics and off-label, and has been assisted in this endeavor by the French state.
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