Tainted Pills Hit US Mainland 162
Tech.Luver notes an AP story on tainted pills that have arrived in the US from — not China this time — Puerto Rico. The article details a disturbing number of incidents of contamination investigated by the FDA over the last few years. "The first warning sign came when a sharp-eyed worker sorting pills noticed that the odd blue flecks dotting the finished drug capsules matched the paint on the factory doors. After the flecks were spotted again on the capsules, a blood-pressure medication called Diltiazem, the plant began placing covers over drugs in carts in its manufacturing areas. But the factory owner, Canadian drug maker Biovail Corp., never tried to find out whether past shipments of the drug were contaminated — or prevent future contamination, according to US regulators... FDA officials say the problems in Puerto Rico are proportionate with the large number of pharmaceutical plants here and generally no worse than those on the US mainland."
Hyping one risk, ignoring another (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Article Mentions Problems in U.S. Also (Score:1, Interesting)
That's the thing. When you look, you find stuff that may or may not be relevant or a problem: take the foam issues with the shuttle. Who knows if all of the insulation issues are actually threatening or not, they didn't start looking until after the last one blew up, so there's no way of knowing if the foam always cracked up or not.
The alternative is not looking at all, and I'd trust the drug companies even less in that situation.
Re:Article Mentions Problems in U.S. Also (Score:5, Interesting)
I for one don't think it's expensive on a per-pill basis to keep a plant like that clean, they should have been clean in the first place.
Re:Article Mentions Problems in U.S. Also (Score:4, Interesting)
If you knew anything about the pharma industry, most of those expensive drugs cost next to nothing to manufacture. The sick and poor can usually get subsidised/free drugs through pharma company programs.
The high retail price of drugs bears almost no relation to its cost, partially because the drug industry spends more on advertising than R&D, but mostly because the market will bear it.
I can't really think of anything other than vaccines that pharma companies sell without a crazy profit margin. Can you?
this time? (Score:3, Interesting)
Simple Solution (Score:1, Interesting)
First offense: The company has its patent for this specific drug revoked. Second offense: ALL drug patents of the company will be voided.
Make an example of the first one or two corporations that feel like testing the waters concerning this and see how now one else will be stupid enough to pull this off again.
Some preemptive refutals:
"The corporations have a right/obligation to turn a profit for their inventions": No, in this case they don't. The manufacturing company is clearly and maliciously not holding up their side of the contract, so why should the society need to?
"Drug corporations will simply not sell their drugs anymore in this country": If you make a good enough case, Europe and Japan will follow suit and react in the same way, since it will lower their healthcare costs. China is still too small a market for expensive medicamentation, so where will the drug corps sell their expensive products then, if they boycott North America, Europe and Japan?