Testing Drugs on India's Poor 531
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:Pff.. (Score:5, Interesting)
WWII (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ethics (Score:3, Interesting)
There are certain upsides for the patients. Yes, they're risking their lives for the chance at health, but in return they are at least getting some medical care. If they're lucky some previously unknown ailment will disqualify them from the study, and get them into one which is more appropriate.
As a lab rat without health insurance, most of my medical care has been through such studies. I get the meds I need to keep on breathing, as well as a shot at something which may make my life more bearable.
Re:I'm Fine With It (Score:1, Interesting)
And yet, if it were up to people like you, you would deny them even this opportunity and make their lives even worse.
It is people like you that would rather the poor stay poor rather then allow them any chance because of your own guilty conscience.
Outsourcing guinea pigs (Score:3, Interesting)
"Doctors are easier to recruit for trials because they don't have to go through the same ethics procedures as their Western colleagues," Ecks said. "And patients ask fewer questions about what is going on."
Hmm. There are obviously some ethical questions here, but I think that it is for the best. Cheaper trials means more research, and the tests are only conducted when it is almost certain to succeed. The US is much too stringent with medicine, because of lawsuits. People with shorter life expectancies don't care quite as much about the risks of testing drugs, and the sooner drugs are out there helping people, the better.
Cue comments about how this is the most evil thing ever, and that nothing is as valuable as a human life (which is why, instead of buying christmas presents, you will donate to third world countries' medicine.)
move along, nothing new here (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact, this is one of the biggest problems in our current medical knowledgebase. Many important drug and poison studies have been conducted in India due to its unique mix of being technologically advanced enough to manage a study, structured enough to organize them, and having a large body of people willing to join them.
The big downside is that India is not an ethnically diverse country. Thus, the results are not necessarily transferrable.
Back in the '50s and '60s, the PCB studies were performed in India. PCBs were found to be highly toxic. It wasn't until the '70s and '80s that followup studies identified the fact that PCBs are vastly (as in 100x type vastly) more toxic to people of Indian and Japanese descent than to people of Caucasion and African descent. If the studies had been done in South America, America, Canada, or Europe, we'd probably still be using PCBs all over the place.
It is critical for the further advancement of medicine that we move beyond our current statistical approach to medicine and studies and start defining which genetic and environmental factors are indications or contraindications for specific medicines. Many medicines kill some people and save others. Rather than tossing them aside, we must start learning to identify when they will kill and when they will save. That requires tests across diverse populations. India doesn't qualify.
examples like this are common in medicine (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Wait (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.stopanimaltests.com/ [stopanimaltests.com]
If you want to be an animal rights activist, there is the legitimate organization called the ASPCA http://www.aspca.org/ [aspca.org]
They have been around for over 130 years.
PeTA is a bunch of wackjob veggie hippies that hates humans and are considered terrorists.
http://www.naiaonline.org/body/articles/archives/
http://www.activistcash.com/organization_overview
Re:Wait (Score:4, Interesting)
It's interesting to see that the same people who support the ecoterrorism by the Animal Liberation Front which has crippled our ability to test drugs on animals are now complaining about the ethical issues of testing drugs on people in India. If only we lived in one big socialistic world, people wouldn't get sick and need drugs, right?
It is obviously the corporations fault. Their love of profits make them test life-saving drugs on people instead of doing the decent thing and going out of business (giving their drugs to noone). If only they knew that their profits are what make people sick in the world.
Re:Karma (Score:3, Interesting)
Slashdot just profits off of our idea, and hides behing their "patents are evil" sudo-ideology.
Drug Patents (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a very interesting statement. One part of patent theory is that commercial organizations won't invest in developing new products unless they have a guarantee that someone else can't just copy their product and sell it. It will be interesting to see if abiding by drug patents promotes drug manufacturing and research to move to India, or if it means that they can't afford the patent costs and nobody can afford drugs there anymore.
Make the FDA a "Informational" only (Score:4, Interesting)
One could argue that the market could regulate these drugs. If a drug company release a drug that did serious damage to 20% of the people taking it, this information would spread quickly and soon most people would stop taking that drug. But I would argue it is far better to have to undergo the rigorous testing the FDA puts most of the drugs through before they're made public so the dangers are known before it's available to most people.
On the other hand, I think there is a lot to be said for making the FDA an "informational" body only. In other words, it would do the same testing it does now, and all drugs would have to be submitted before release just as they are now, but regardless of the outcome of that testing the drug companies could make that drug publicly available. Before taking a drug, or before a doctor prescribes a drug, this database would be consulted to see the dangers and see how effective it is. The patients and doctors could then make their own decision as to whether or not this drug is good or bad.
If I'm dying of cancer I should be able to try anything I damn well please... in fact, if I've got a bad cold I should be able to try anything I damn well please. If I'm stupid and try the pharmacological equivalent of rat poison, then so be it... but the government shouldn't be able to limit my options.
Re:Pff.. (Score:3, Interesting)
blessing and curse (Score:5, Interesting)
In general, humans are pretty genetically uniform. But some crucial differences do pop up. Heck, think of testing something as benign as dairy products. Most of the world can't drink milk.
Fun bit o' trivia: a significant number of chemicals that cause cancer in rats, don't in mice. And visa versa. Makes you wonder how reliable those tests are extrapolated to humans!
And today's Unintentional Iron award goes to... (Score:5, Interesting)
Outstanding! One is rarely treated to such a display of irony: a sweeping, uninformed, all-inclusive condemnation of a huge swath of the country, contending that they, what... are losers because they make sweeping, uninformed judgements about things?
I don't suppose you've met any of the loony hardcore Catholics from New England? Or perhaps some Mormons from the upper-Rockies area? Or maybe some urban Baptists from, say, Philadelphia? Or perhaps some addled-brained Wiccan Nitwits from Seattle? Or maybe some Orthodox Jews from downtown NY,NY? There are people with retro-silly sensibilities all over this country, and always have been. New England is still infested with Puritans. No amount of MTV or porn spam seems to cure it.
On the other hand, I've met some of the most literate, gracious, science-informed, fundy-allergic, down-to-earth people in the world south of the Mason-Dixon Line. On balance, they're often considerably more rational and forward-thinking than some of the culture-rot-population I've met lurking in a lot of the northern cities. I'm just as tired of urbane, metrosexual pseudo-intellectuals who think that hydrogen is a new energy source being hidden by the government as you are of the hillbilly that thinks he's been abducted by aliens because he drank too much cough syrup.
Indian drugs are more powerful (Score:3, Interesting)
When I was in India like 10 years ago I bought eye drops against conjunctivitis called Itone or something. They worked so well that I bought like 20 bottles for my friends with similar problems. I was a little perplexed why some bottles were marked with red letters "Physician sample". I returned to Europe and after 3 years I saw a poster in a local pharmacy which advertised a new, revolutionary drug that was just released, the same Itone I had been using for several years.
My wife developed some stomach problems in India. She visited a doctor who gave her some medicine that took away all problems in one day. In Europe the same stomach problem returned but the doctors were horrified when she told what kind of medicine she was taking in India. They prescribed some other treatment but that was not very effective and it took 2 months to completely cure her illness. I guess the European doctors were not so experienced in tropical diseases.
I know of another person who was treated by some Indian fakir who gave him ash from yagyas (sacrificial fire). Supposedly harmless thing that was simply blessed by his mantras and yantras. Nevertheless it was very effective and made the person very peaceful. Before this person was suffering from the bipolar disorder but he didn't want to take drugs because they made him dull. But simple ash worked so good for him. Long story short, after several years it turned out that the fakir was mixing very powerful psychotropic drug with ash and giving to him. Well, in the West it would be considered cheating but in India who cares if it did well to the patient. And if someone dies in the process that is not a big problem, there are already so many people in India that one person more or less doesn't make any difference.
Re:Make the FDA a "Informational" only (Score:3, Interesting)
In a society where every member goes to medical school and has access to the same infomation that drug companies routinely supress (Vioxx, anyone?) your idea would be a great one. As it stands, though, I agree with the sentiment that what you're advocating is "libertarian hogwash".
What are you talking about? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What are you talking about? (Score:3, Interesting)
I have never been a member of PETA myself as I do not personally believe in some of their methods, but as a social activist and semi-radical myself I have known quite a few. Most are perfectly reasonable people, at least for activist circles (whether activists themselves are generally reasonable people is another topic entirely, so just shut yer yaps, you anti-hippy neocon fascist freaks
Anyways, Some Random Username, you didn't deserve to get marked troll there. You were raising valid points. But the stereotype of the human hating PETA member is a common one, and a great example of industry counter-propaganda.
Re:I'm Fine With It (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's look at a CEO of a large company who is doing an extremely poor job (let's say the GM guy). He makes about 500 times the salary of an average employee. If he is fired or quits, he will get a huge golden parachute (something like $5 million). Are you saying he works 500x harder than an average GM employee? How would that even be possible?
I think in a perfect society everyone would work as hard as they were able and everyone would receive equally.
Since most people never work as hard as they are able to, this system would be inherently unfair. In any fair system, people are compensated by job performance and job difficulty. A good system should additionally guarantee that everyone will receive the very basic human necessities (housing, food, healthcare), if they are unable to work.