Among 2020's Most Underreported Stories: Pharmaceutical Profiteering May Accelerate Superbugs (projectcensored.org) 86
Since 1976 "Project Censored," a U.S.-based nonprofit media watchdog organization, has been identifying "the news that didn't make the news," the most significant stories it believes are being systematically overlooked. Slashdot ran stories about its annual list of the year's most censored news stories in 1999, 2003, 2004, and in 2007, when they'd presciently warned that the media was ignoring the issue of net neutrality.
But their latest list of underreported stories includes this disturbing headline: "Antibiotic Abuse: Pharmaceutical Profiteering Accelerates Superbugs." Pharmaceutical giants Abbott and Sun Pharma are providing dangerous amounts of antibiotics to unlicensed doctors in India and incentivizing them to overprescribe. In August 2019 the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) reported that these unethical business practices are leading to a rise in superbugs, or bacterial infections that are resistant to antibiotic treatment. Bacteria naturally evolve a resistance to antibiotics over time, but the widespread and inappropriate use of antibiotics accelerates this process. Superbugs are killing at least 58,000 babies each year and rendering a growing number of patients untreatable with all available drugs.
India's unlicensed medical practitioners, known as "quack" doctors, are being courted by Abbott and Sun Pharma, billion-dollar companies that do business in more than one hundred countries, including the United States. The incentives these companies provide to quack doctors to sell antibiotics have included free medical equipment, gift cards, televisions, travel, and cash, earning some doctors nearly a quarter of their salary. "Sales representatives would also offer extra pills or money as an incentive to buy more antibiotics, encouraging potentially dangerous overprescription," a Sun Pharma sales representative revealed to an undercover BIJ reporter... [P]atients without access to better care often turn to quack doctors for treatment, and many are unaware that their local medical "professionals" have no formal training and are being bribed to sell unnecessary antibiotics.
In September 2019, the BIJ reported on similar problems with broken healthcare systems, medical corruption, and dangerous superbugs in Cambodia. Their account describes how patients often request antibiotics for common colds, to pour onto wounds, and to feed to animals. Illegally practicing doctors and pharmacists in Cambodia admitted that they would often prescribe based on customer requests rather than appropriate medical guidelines. As the BIJ noted, "This kind of misuse speeds up the creation of drug resistant bacteria, or superbugs, which are predicted to kill 10 million people by 2050 if no action is taken...."
Although superbugs have attracted some attention, their cause and importance remain poorly understood by the public. The Independent and BuzzFlash republished the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's report; otherwise, the role of pharmaceutical companies in the rise of dangerous superbugs has been drastically underreported.
The site's list of the top 25 censored stories of 2019 - 2020 also includes:
But their latest list of underreported stories includes this disturbing headline: "Antibiotic Abuse: Pharmaceutical Profiteering Accelerates Superbugs." Pharmaceutical giants Abbott and Sun Pharma are providing dangerous amounts of antibiotics to unlicensed doctors in India and incentivizing them to overprescribe. In August 2019 the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) reported that these unethical business practices are leading to a rise in superbugs, or bacterial infections that are resistant to antibiotic treatment. Bacteria naturally evolve a resistance to antibiotics over time, but the widespread and inappropriate use of antibiotics accelerates this process. Superbugs are killing at least 58,000 babies each year and rendering a growing number of patients untreatable with all available drugs.
India's unlicensed medical practitioners, known as "quack" doctors, are being courted by Abbott and Sun Pharma, billion-dollar companies that do business in more than one hundred countries, including the United States. The incentives these companies provide to quack doctors to sell antibiotics have included free medical equipment, gift cards, televisions, travel, and cash, earning some doctors nearly a quarter of their salary. "Sales representatives would also offer extra pills or money as an incentive to buy more antibiotics, encouraging potentially dangerous overprescription," a Sun Pharma sales representative revealed to an undercover BIJ reporter... [P]atients without access to better care often turn to quack doctors for treatment, and many are unaware that their local medical "professionals" have no formal training and are being bribed to sell unnecessary antibiotics.
In September 2019, the BIJ reported on similar problems with broken healthcare systems, medical corruption, and dangerous superbugs in Cambodia. Their account describes how patients often request antibiotics for common colds, to pour onto wounds, and to feed to animals. Illegally practicing doctors and pharmacists in Cambodia admitted that they would often prescribe based on customer requests rather than appropriate medical guidelines. As the BIJ noted, "This kind of misuse speeds up the creation of drug resistant bacteria, or superbugs, which are predicted to kill 10 million people by 2050 if no action is taken...."
Although superbugs have attracted some attention, their cause and importance remain poorly understood by the public. The Independent and BuzzFlash republished the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's report; otherwise, the role of pharmaceutical companies in the rise of dangerous superbugs has been drastically underreported.
The site's list of the top 25 censored stories of 2019 - 2020 also includes:
- Growing interest in so-called "public" banks, "not legally obligated to maximize profits, as private banks are; instead, public banks are mandated to serve their communities."
- How rising sea levels and warmer waters will impact nuclear power plants, "posing increased risks of nuclear disasters."
- Proposals to revitalize journalism through public funding.
- How the U.S. military represents "a massive, hidden contributor to the climate crisis."
Could always be worse (Score:1)
Could always be armed (Score:3)
We could have a weapons industry that profits off of bad people, protected by the right to be armed.
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Play along. This story is about the BIG BAD CORPORATIONS profiting from others behavior. We've just legalized and codified the whole thing and called it the GUN industry. It's still profiting, and last I heard no one's upset over the making of money.
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cute.
name the top 10 global pharma manufactures
Wealth tax (Re:Could always be armed) (Score:1)
No one is upset about the making of money? Then you missed the part about the wealth tax. https://www.projectcensored.or... [projectcensored.org]
A federal wealth tax is unconstitutional but people keep bringing it up. The government can tax income and trade, not wealth. Start taxing wealth and people will find ways to hide it or leave the country with it. Try to tax people as they leave with their wealth just means that people that think they will have enough potential income to have their future wealth taxed will leave.
I'l
Re: Wealth tax (Re:Could always be armed) (Score:1)
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What the heck are you trying to describe? Capital Gains taxes are common in many/most nearly all developed countries.
A wealth tax is a tax that taxes you on money you already paid taxes on when you earned it, simple as that.
As a reminder, the Income Tax in America was enacted as a mechanism to force the Robber Barons of the time (Rockefeller, Carnegie, etc.) to "pay their fair share" of their obscene wealth, politicians swore up and down that "the average person" was never going to pay an income tax... How
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What did you mean by 'remember who wrote it'?
Basically people threatened by new tax laws. I understand it is not the whole story or all stories, but this is one of them.
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A federal wealth tax is unconstitutional but people keep bringing it up. The government can tax income and trade, not wealth.
The American Bar Association disagrees. [americanbar.org] So does Georgetown Law. [georgetown.edu] It's a matter of debate whether or not a federal wealth tax is constitutional. Maybe that's why people keep bringing it up.
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And so there's nothing "inherently wrong" about the original story. You just have "criminals" in one and "quack doctors" in the other. Profiteers in both with the former being a protected profiteer, with the later being...
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Just more noise (Re:Could always be armed) (Score:1)
Tell me how effective any firearm controls could be in the USA when CNC mills can be ordered over the internet for a couple thousand dollars that can turn a block of aluminum into a receiver for a pistol or rifle?
It's the receiver that has the serial number that are required for mass produced firearms so any firearm produced by these CNC mills will not have a serial number that's been tracked by the FBI, ATF, or any state law enforcement. It's already known for people to produce duplicates of privately own
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There are 300 million guns in America, disarming every law-abiding citizen doesn't, by definition, disarm criminals.
Is America really safer when only criminals and police/military have guns? Probably not. Several major cities in America have "effectively" (not literally) disarmed their citizenry, with predictable results - for example, Chicago.
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If this is such a viable way to get unregistered guns why aren't there more criminal organizations doing it?
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How would we know how many unregistered guns are out there in the hands of criminals? They are by definition not being tracked by the government. If there is some kind of law to register them then by definition the criminals are not registering them. It's possible that the criminal organizations are putting serial numbers on any unregistered guns they make. It is that the serial numbers that are duplicate from a legitimate gun. If found then they are likely traced back to some dead end record from deca
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I'm not saying that ghost guns aren't being made just that I don't think a CNC machine is really all that effective of a way to mass produce them. I would be more concerned with 3D printers at this point going forward.
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Whenever I bring up CNC mills then someone says 3D printers are more viable. When I mention 3D printers I get someone that says only any idiot would choose that over a 3D printer to make a firearm. The point is that with technology today it takes minimal skill and funds to start a low production rate gun factory that is unlikely to get on the radar of law enforcement until thousands of ghost guns have been made.
There will never be any effective gun control in the USA ever again. If they try then with eve
Re:Could always be armed (Score:4, Interesting)
The Auto Industry also profits off "bad people" - someone steals your car, you are forced to buy another, and "Big Auto" collects big profits.
And what about homeowners insurance? Without "bad people" that occasionally steal your stuff, who'd buy homeowners insurance on their stuff? Big Insurance is profiting off the "bad people".
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Of course, but the unspoken subtext to the main story is the implication that one needs to do something about the problem. So far no calls for dealing with the profiteers you mentioned.
Re:Could always be worse (Score:5, Insightful)
As bad as things might be here in North America, we can all be thankful we're not in India.
Borders are meaningless to microbes. So when it comes to the superbugs being fostered there by Big Pharma, we effectively ARE in India, or will be within a couple of years.
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California already is India... Overpopulation. Homeless people everywhere. People pooping and peeing in the street and on the sidewalk. Lots of corruption. Overpriced, intermittent electricity. Pollution. Insufficient clean water supplies. Need I go on?
No. We need to learn from their mistakes.
This is what happens when you let too many foreigners into your country under H-1B's, open borders, etc.
Foreigners can't vote, they didn't cause this.
This is from American citizens voting for these policies decades before the state was overrun by immigrants, legal and illegal. The California government considers the entire state a sanctuary from federal immigration laws. Elected officials will warn illegal immigrants of a planned ICE raid. The state tolerates the anti-vax movement, and does nothing about public protests during a pandemic. It should be no surprise
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COVID-19 pandemic in the United States [wikipedia.org]
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I haven't been paying attention, and search engines give me nothing immediately obvious. What is going on in India?
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"Fake" doctors in India are over-prescribing antibiotics, and the pharma company commission-based salesmen are offering doctors kickbacks based on the volume of antibiotics they prescribe/sell.
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Ahmen
triggers (Score:5, Interesting)
Big Pharma and India.
If you're not negatively triggered by that information, perhaps you haven't been paying attention.
Profit minded pharmaceutical company exploits the 3rd World to improve its bottom line.
Surprised? Big Pharm exploited the 1st World with synthetic pain killers for years... what they're learning is the ultimate cost of lawsuits isn't a complete roadblock to similar future projects.
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The simple answer is for India to crack down on "fake" doctors, tending to the truly poor with "best guess" treatments that over-rely on antibiotics - why does India get a pass on that?
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Are you serious? I can assume that American education is renowned to be so bad even illegal immigrants are stealing your jobs. But just asking - are you really not trolling?
Re:Several drugs work for Covid but studies silenc (Score:5, Interesting)
Just one example:
Ivermectin has been clinically shown to prevent 100% of covid cases in patients taking it. 100%. Not a single study participant contracted covid while taking ivermectin.
Not true. It did reduce the number of cases significantly in some trials, but not to zero. Also, the studies were small and many had methodology problems, so there's a fairly high probability that it will regress to the mean in subsequent studies.
Here's a decent write-up [rebelem.com] on the studies so far.
It's way too soon to call it a viable treatment. Didn't you learn your lesson with the last "miracle cure" (hydroxychloroquine)? Lots of things look good in a test tube. That doesn't mean they work in the real world.
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This should help:
Ivermectin in Adults With Severe COVID-19 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2... [clinicaltrials.gov]
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That's unrelated to its effectiveness when used prophylactically, which was what the OP was talking about.
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"That's unrelated to its effectiveness when used prophylactically, which was what the OP was talking about."
Yeah, that's why I said "it should help" because if that study gets good results then solid studies using Ivermectin in different situations are more likely to get funded.
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No.
Most experts find the idea of having an existing drug, any drug, be an effective treatment to be unlikely. Of course, unlikely does not mean it is not worth trying, and they try, but failure is the expected result. It doesn't mean nothing can be done, for example antibiotics are used to fight secondary infections, you may also want to take vitamin D if you are deficient (but it's useless if you are not), things like that. But nothing that works against the virus specifically.
The only drug that gave a bit
Re: Several drugs work for Covid but studies silen (Score:2)
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If you believe health care is expensive now then think of how expensive it will get when the government pays for it. If the CDC will not recommend off patent treatments and inexpensive vitamin and mineral supplements to treat a pandemic then government funded health care will provide health care that maximizes profits for drug companies.
If you want low cost health care then YOU need to pay for it out of your own pocket. Even medical insurance between you and the physician can fuck up the market forces tha
Re: Several drugs work for Covid but studies silen (Score:1)
Don't be ridiculous, there was no study with 100% prevention.
BTW some of the most prominent physicians in Brazil recommending either cloroquine or ivermectine treatment died of covid-19.
E.g.
https://saude.ig.com.br/2020-0... [ig.com.br]
I've been saying that for years (Score:1)
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Not that big a problem, they pesky little critters tend to be one trick ponies, only so much can be stored in their genes and only so many features can be built into the single cell or less existence. So rather than one anti-biotic a combination of anti-biotics with non reinforcing side affects, targeting from multiple vectors, they can resist one but they can not resist them all, the right combination of course (do not forget the counter to side affects, the right mixture of vitamins and minerals promote t
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The real problem is that the genetic code for antibiotic resistance can be communicated from one bacterium to another. Bacteria basically swap useful code from one another (see plasmid transfer).
Thus, antibiotics used to treat viral infection (completely useless) can cause the bacterial in the patient's gut to develop resistance. If the patient then contracts a lethal bacterial disease, there is a non-trivial chance that the new infection will pick up resistance via plasmid swap with the local bacteria as
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The issue is the fake doctor in India, not the pharma companies that fill the prescriptions of the fake doctors write...
what if big pharma (Score:2, Insightful)
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Yes, the fatal flaw of capitalism is its likelihood for corruption by presumably greedy people... that almost never happens in all the other nations that practice economic theory different from the West.
Perhaps we can get past this lingering bit of tribalism. Every form of of prevailing economic theory is heavily invested in protecting the haves; else, what's the point of having money and the associated political influence?
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Corruption is somehow exclusive to capitalist countries? That is a farce.
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actually, Capitalist societies are fairly resilient to corruption because making a PROFIT is morally approved.
It is in the little half rated Marxist dictatorships around the world where you have to bribe officials to get any business done, or a loaf of bread. There is nothing wrong with making a profit and nothing wrong in selling antibiotics in India.
Re: what if big pharma (Score:2)
Except that the superbugs that result from this unbridled profiteering won't stay in India. Surely you're not so short sighted to see that ultimately this is a concern for us all?
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This article is about poor Indians, unable to afford "real" medical care go to the "fake" doctors that India's government apparently tolerates and the poor patients are over-prescribed (by non-doctors, mind you) antibiotics, fostering an environment where a superbugs may develop. There are a whole lot of other issues in this situation to address before attacking the commission-based salesman that sells the safe and effective antibiotics to the "fake" doctors.
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Yes, damn it! Someone, somewhere should step up and regulate the drug industry, and while we're at it - why not the financial markets too? They've been unregulated for centuries! Oh, wait - we do already.
Were you really unaware the FDA in the US or similar agencies around the world?
Offshoring evils is a long-standing tradition (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember a scandal when our largest baby food supplier was discovered to have spiked their products with overwhelming amounts of sugar. Now why, you might ask, would an American food manufacturer want to addict infants to sugar? If that's too complicated for you to unravel, read no further. So, anyway it was clear that this scam would no longer be tolerated by American parents. No problem; just sell those products to other countries where the news hasn't arrived. Problem solved.
Likewise when Americans finally began to wake to the danger of cigarets, is it any surprise that manufacturers began heavy marketing in other parts of the world? Anyone with a product too dangerous for alert consumers can always find a market among the ignorant.
It would be a good thing if activists would expand their horizons to protect foreigners from unwholesome products made at home, but it's difficult to keep track of these massive corporate scams.
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hmm sugar addiction. The evils of the Krebs Cycle raises it's ugly head again!
Hello Resistant Syphilis (Score:2)
Abbott Labs. Curing corona, and bringing back syphilis. (TM)
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Interestingly enough, the bacterium that causes syphilis is one of the relatively few beasties that does NOT develop antibiotic resistance. Penicillin is still effective against it, and it is so much better than anything else that the official recommendation for patients who are allergic to penicillin is inpatient ultra-rapid allergic desensitization followed by the standard therapeutic penicillin dose.
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inpatient ultra-rapid allergic desensitization
Wow, how does that work?
Re:Hello Resistant Syphilis (Score:5, Interesting)
It is a pretty standard procedure these days.
You hospitalize the patient. You give him a very small dose of the allergen, in this case penicillin. You let him survive that. You do it again, increasing the dose. Wash, rinse, repeat, each time increasing the dose. The idea is that each small dose is, by itself, not enough to trigger an allergic reaction, but it does reduce the patient's sensitivity to the allergen, allowing the next dose to be larger.
Done CAREFULLY, the patient is worked up to the point where the full therapeutic dose can be given without significant risk of an adverse reaction.
It is risky, which is why it is done in a hospital (inpatient): if the patient does have an adverse reaction, the hospital can crank up QUICKLY to treat it.
Because it is an inpatient procedure, it is EXPENSIVE, which is why it is not done for all allergies.
#3. US Military big contributor to global warming (Score:2)
Don't miss this one:
https://www.projectcensored.or... [projectcensored.org]
The US military would not be as large of a contributor to global warming had US Congress continued to fund the "nuclear navy". Nuclear power is great for powering warships. It gives them unlimited range. There's no plume from the exhaust that can give away a ship's position. (It may not be visible by eye but IR and other sensors can pick it up.) Provides considerable power for sensors, directed energy weapons, aircraft catapults, and more. A lack of
Chances Are (Score:2)
I don't think pharma is as much to blame (Score:2)
As stupid people and stupid doctors that think a pill will fix anything, the want a pill and it more often than not comes in the form of an antibiotic. Mostly people want to prescribe an antibiotic for anything and everything (or get one).
revitalize journalism through public funding (Score:2)
Journalists will always serve who pays them. If the government pays them, you'll get the government point of view. Not independent journalism. They'll just be the propaganda arm of the state.
mandated to serve (Score:2)
> public banks are mandated to serve their communities
Running a business based on altruism doesn't work very well.
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So you'd rather do business with BoA, Wells Fargo, etc than your local employer/community based credit union?
Rubbish (Score:2)
The story about "fake" doctors in India being incentivized to over-prescribe antibiotics? Rubbish. It is nothing more than commission-based salesmen maximizing their commission, nothing more. Perhaps the issue is "fake" doctors, not the pharmaceutical companies that offer the safe, effective medicine the "fake" doctors are potentially over-prescribing?
And he story the "Growing interest in so-called "public" banks, "not legally obligated to maximize profits, as private banks are; instead, public banks are ma
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The Democrat Party's media arm determined that anything reflecting poorly on their candidate held no interest for the American Public, and declined to cover it in any way, whatsoever. The President-Elect's socks were of pivotal importance, though.
Every Biden Administration press conference held during the next four years will have enough brown-nosing, tongue-bathing and set-up softball questions to barf a buzzard off a gut-wagon.
Members of the media will be expected to bring their own jeweled knee-pads.
what this political garbage have to do with /.? (Score:2)
The site's list of the top 25 censored stories of 2019 - 2020 also includes
25 items of progressivist agenda.
I'm sure they missed the real story (Score:1)
How a religion / fake science of disease causing viruses threw half the world into chaos.
Global warming shouldn't threaten nuclear plants (Score:2)
When I studied the accident at Fukushima (here's a good video on it [youtube.com]), it struck me how obvious it was that a problem existed and how easy it would have been to avoid.
The Fukushima reactors were built in the 1970s, when safety regulations were weaker and nuclear plants were much, much cheaper [pitt.edu]. They had 40 years before the meltdown to fix a key problem, and somehow never got around to it.
You only have to notice three things to realize Fukushima has a major flaw:
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