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In China, Desperate Patients Smuggle Drugs or Make Their Own

nytimes.com

61–70 of 102 posts

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

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But not the lead crisis.

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

#62
post #50

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/…

One of the worst companies I have ever had the pleasure of working with. Everything is just seemingly beneath them including their own jobs.

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

#63
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…

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 p…

But this is nowhere near the same thing as the Chinese baby milk melamine scandal, as well as more localized fake baby milk powder scandals. In fact, people go to HK to buy so much baby milk powder that they had prevent export.

We are comparing a non defective product that couldn’t be used effectively by a certain populations to outright fraud.

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

#64
post #8

>”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!

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…

How is this racist white supremcist drivel allows to stay on HN? We are 1 human race, there is no difference between skin color.

To call out an entire people as cruel and heartless is just so wrong!

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

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Google is not that corrupt yet, thank goodness. However, to respond to the idea in the other comment: That Chinese people, Chinese society, or Chinese culture is somehow the root cause, I think we should be calling out Baidu and the PLA in particular.

Oh, I totally believe those things would happen in the states if we didn’t have much better rule of law than China. It’s a corrupt government, but culture that it is the problem.

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

#66

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.

cheaper medicine means cheaper bill for the social system, how can that be a bad thing?

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

#67
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flint crisis is over.

I think you missed the point. The Chinese melamine scandal is over too.

And yet I can't buy a tin of baby formula because it's all sold out instantly.

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

#68
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…

How is this racist white supremcist drivel allows to stay on HN? We are 1 human race, there is no difference between skin color. To call out an entire people as cruel and heartless is just so wrong!

1 human race, but very different financially. That will lead to many different things.

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

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Being Chinese myself, I can say the moral standard of normal Chinese are more bipolar than western world. Some are incredibly kind and fair. Some are incredibly immoral, who can be viewed as demon incarnations. See example like this: https://www.zhihu.com/question/53610601 (manufacture human monster slave to use as worker as fake beggar)

people are different because of their circumstances. Not because of their skin color.

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

#70
post #45

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 explanatio…

There's even a book about this unpunished tragedy, by Dominique Lapierre: "Five Past Midnight in Bhopal: The Epic Story of the World's Deadliest Industrial Disaster"

On the night of December 3, 1984, a cyanide cloud drifted over the streets of Bhopal, India, set loose by a leak in a nearby chemical plant. When the deadly fog lifted untold numbers of the city's residents--perhaps as many as 30,000, by some accounts--lay dead, while half a million others were injured. Dominique Lapierre, a French journalist and longtime champion of India's poor, joins with Spanish writer Javier Moro to recount the terrors of that night, about which the whole truth may never be known. The deaths are but one part of the authors' long, sometimes elaborate tale, which relates how the industrial conglomerate Union Carbide had come to build its vast chemical complex at Bhopal, one meant to be a glory of technology and, ironically, to save thousands of lives brought low by insect-wrought starvation. There are few villains but many heroes in the authors' account, which explores the margins at which good intentions conflict with the profit motive, at which cost-cutting omissions yield horrifically unintended consequences. It all makes for a thoughtful and disturbing book.

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