Testing Drugs on India's Poor

theodp writes to tell us Wired is reporting that a lot of medical research firms are using India's poor as a hot test bed. From the article: "The sudden influx of drug companies to India resembles the gold rush frontier, according to Sean Philpott, managing editor of The American Journal of Bioethics. 'Not only are research costs low, but there is a skilled work force to conduct the trials'"

Re:"Skilled work force"?

[damsa]

No there are people to administer the drugs and take blood tests and the sort, like nurses and the like.

Re:No Surprise

[ben_white]

Seems to me I remember a fertility treatment called thalidomide....and a bunch of babies born without arms and legs being the reason for that. Isn't it amazing how profit creates short memories?

Not a fertility treatment, but a treatment for morning sickness (see here [wikipedia.org]). And interestingly enough, never approved for distribution in the US (until 1998 for leprosy and myeloma).

Testing on America's poor too...

[digitaldc]

http://www.novartisclinicaltrials.com/etrials/home .do?pl_id=bmretk000019 [novartiscl...trials.com]
http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/syws/guineapig/guin eapigFULL.html [soyouwanna.com]

Why go to India's poor ? The poor in the US can go to these links and do all types of experiments, for a variety of disorders.

Re:move along, nothing new here

[Anonymous Coward]

The big downside is that India is not an ethnically diverse country. Thus, the results are not necessarily transferrable.

I beg to differ. India is not only ethnically, but linguistically very diverse. Although, I suppose everyone is kinda darkish, so they might all look the same, but they're not...

Re:Wait

[nizo]

'Ship Breaking' [msn.com] is indeed incredibly harsh and toxic work.

Re:Okay

[Cro Magnon]

The reason it's different is because it deprives OUR poor, jobless losers the chance to earn money as guinea pigs.

Re:Generic versions of patented drugs

[ehiris]

What these companies try to do is keep high prices even if their labor costs go down in low income regions. To maintain their profits high amid lowered costs they lobby for protective rules that inhibit competition.

Both the USA and other countries lose from anti-competition rules.

Not just in India

[msbsod]

Such practices are not new. Here is another example: "New York's HIV experiment" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/this_world/4 038375.stm [bbc.co.uk]

Re:I'm Fine With It

[vertinox]

Maybe we can put some of these poor into concentrated areas. Maybe camps. Maybe call them concentrated camps or maybe concentration camps where you can perform drug tests, and also other helpful experiments.

Last I checked, those people in camps weren't paid. Secondly, they didn't volunteer. Lastly, most of them weren't poor until their personal property wasn't forcefully removed from their persons.

Look, these people are poor but they'd rather be poor than be those people that went to those camps.

Oh and I bet you are unaware of the underground medical trade in southeast asia. People have been known to sell off kidneys and spare eyes to make ends meat. They are going to be volunteering for money on a lot of medical things whether you like it or not.

Re:No, and no.

[keezer]

Again, I must reiterate with:
http://www.peta.org/feat/arafat/ [peta.org]

Re:The perils of genetic variations

[ultramk]

Do you have any evidence to back up your assertions? Some peer-reviewed studies, perhaps?

IIRC, it's pretty well-documented that genetic variation *within* any one (racial, cultural) group is far greater than the statistical variation from one group to another. With a few isolated exceptions (sickle-cell anemia/malaria connection among some ethnic Africans, lack of adult lactase production in some Asian populations), we're all pretty much the same on the inside.

You're right that people differ in their drug reactions, but by and large, these are differences in individuals, not ethnic groups. If I'm wrong, please link some peer-reviewed studies.

M-

Re:Wait

[Parham]

I don't know exactly what the consequences would be, and I have never studied it to know exactly what would happen. However, it seems that if the Indian government were to enforce these laws, then corporations wouldn't be running there in the first place. i think that's a big incentive for them to go overseas - cheap labor, poor to no health laws, etc...

Correct me if i'm wrong.

Re:Wait

[hopethisnickisnottak]

Except that though the choice may be semi-informed, it won't be free when the person has a choice between being killed by drugs or killed by starvation (along with their family).

What crap!
Not every poor person in India dies of starvation. Infact, starvation related deaths have gone down significantly.
And the drugs that are being tested have been approved for human testing by the Indian equivalent of the FDA. Yes, we have institutions that help protect our rights too. It isn't just in your country that people have rights, you know.

There's a reason why India is being targeted.

Yeah, and unfortunately you don't know about it.
India is being 'targeted' because the Indian population shows incredible genetic diversity unavailable anywhere else. This diversity means that with a few test cases, you can test your drugs on someone with a mediterranean genetic makeup, an australoid genetic makeup, a mongoloid genetic makeup etc. and various combinations of the above. It's not just about the money. Otherwise they would go to Chinese prisons.