We as Maldivians, have to be aware of this kind of devilry of human expeimentation which is well ongoing, from these very powerful pharmaceutical companies.
Recently we did hear that 4 drugs have been taken out of the list of drugs from Maldives due to the low standards. Most of the drugs in Maldives come from India and Pakistan. A full list can be found here. Currently I am looking up the drugs and companies who supply these drugs to Maldives.
In Africa the documentary showed how one of the world’s biggest drug companies experimented on children without their parents’ knowledge or consent. In Canada it revealed how a drug company attempted to silence a leading academic who had doubts about their drug. In South Korea it followed the attempts of desperately ill patients to make a leading drug company sell them the drugs they need to save their lives at an affordable price. And in Honduras they showed the brutal consequences of drug companies’ pricing policies. More here.
As India is the major supplier of drugs to Maldives, we have to be aware of what is happening in the pharmaceutical companies placed there and how they are using the poor to test their drugs.
In March 2005, India’s new patent law was passed that would bring it into line with the WTO rules that requires more protection of produced drugs, and restricted scenarios in which generic drugs (which are cheaper) can be produced. Oxfam has criticized this as saying the WTO rules will restrict access to life saving drugs world wide, not just in India, because India’s generics industry was popular around the world for its ability to produce more affordable medicines.
And as Wired News reported at the end of 2005, those new laws, somewhat ironically, now enable pharmaceutical companies to test drugs on the poor by using India’s cheaper, but highly skilled workforce to conduct drugs trials there, rather than in industrialized countries, thus saving significantly on the costs. More here.
There is room to believe that some companies might be trying same kind of tactics with Maldivians who barely know about the drugs they are prescribed for. It is not a problem that is created by the companies in India but rather it is one that has been manifested by the larger bigger and more powerful companies who are ruling the pharmaceutical arena. Most of them are buying these smaller companies now.
Not surprisng when the Maldivian list has Pfizer products as comming from “various manufacturers” as listed. This company is known to be a very very very notorious one.
Leave a Reply