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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

#41

Post by markdown »

darawk wrote: post #31
meds2010 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Nestle marketed the formula heavily as a safe substitute for breast milk despite the fact they knew many Africans didn't have access to safe drinking water to make the formula, they sold it heavily discounted.

Mothers bought it and used it so their own breast milk dried up. Then when they couldn't afford enough of it as the baby grew and needed more, they were forced to ration the formula.

Millions died.

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

#42

Post by BurningFrog »

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…

If approvals were about science, one approval would be good enough worldwide.

In reality, approvals are also about politics.

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

#43

Post by markdown »

jasonbarrah wrote: post #25
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…

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 pol…

Cutting corners to make items cheaper and make more money without govt regulation is capitalism and the end goal for the ruling American party (GOP). See their recent attacks on the EPA.

> poisoning Americans is part of Chinese culture .

WTF is wrong with you? Why are there humans on HN like you?

BTW the Chinese who poisoned their own countrymen in pursuit of profit were put to death, while the Americans who do the same to this day in Flint, Michigan and other places are still alive and they're still poisoning Americans. Is it American culture to poison your countrymen?

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

#44

Post by yadongwen »

syntaxing wrote: post #40

Does anyone know which site they are talking about in the article ('Dances with Cancer' and "I want miracles")?

They are yuaigongwu and 51qiji. They have helped numerous patients in China. To be fair, they are mostly patient forums helping each other and most of the medicine for cancer can be purchased with discount in China. They are less expensive than the US but still expensive which is why some poorer patients are seeking alternatives/self made medicine.

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

#45

Post by jjcc »

contingencies wrote: post #39

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…

The movie mentioned in the report triggered a lot of discussions online. One question that troubled many Chinese was: Why Chinese need to smuggle cheap drugs instead of producing their own equivalent. The difference is obviously the IP cost of drugs owned by the big pharma because Chinese companies have the capability to produce the drugs. Then why China can not violate those IPs while India can? A popular explanation by some experts was: A US company had a disastrous accident in the 80's caused thousands of Indians death and blind. So US never put a pressure on India government to enforce the IP laws. But China is different. There's no way to have a scalable drug production without violate those drug IPs.

I don't know the explaination is accurate or not.

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

#46

Post by claudiawerner »

darawk wrote: post #29
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.

Is it? I remember seeing a paper in which they found no empirical evidence that patents actually help in medicine. I'd be interested to know if you have any information on it.

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

#48

Post by syntaxing »

yadongwen wrote: post #44
syntaxing wrote: post #40

Does anyone know which site they are talking about in the article ('Dances with Cancer' and "I want miracles")?

They are yuaigongwu and 51qiji. They have helped numerous patients in China. To be fair, they are mostly patient forums helping each other and most of the medicine for cancer can be purchased with discount in China. They are less expensive than the US but still expensive which is why some poorer patients are seeking alternatives/self made medicine.

Thanks! Do you know who "Bean Spirit" is? I was going to guess 豆神 but not sure since spirit can be a lot of words.

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

#49

Post by pleasebecivil »

markdown wrote: post #43
jasonbarrah wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pol…

Cutting corners to make items cheaper and make more money without govt regulation is capitalism and the end goal for the ruling American party (GOP). See their recent attacks on the EPA. > poisoning Americans is part of Chinese culture . WTF is wrong with you? Why are there humans on HN like you? BTW the Chinese who poisoned their own countrymen in pursuit of profit were put to death , while the Americans who do the…

Flint crisis is over.

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

#50

Post by refurb »

contingencies wrote: post #39

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…

Yeah, India is very forward thinking about generics.[1]

Ranbaxy executives didn’t care, says Kathy Spreen, and made little effort to conceal it. In a conference call with a dozen company executives, one brushed aside her fears about the quality of the AIDS medicine Ranbaxy was supplying for Africa. “Who cares?” he said, according to Spreen. “It’s just blacks dying.”

[1]https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2013/05/17/a_...

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