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'"

Comments

So we have our own race of UnderMenschen to use.

[mmell]

My ancesters survived the Nazi holocaust.

Their descendants have now lived long enough to see (parts of it) repeated.

Y'know, I've never been ashamed of my American citizenship until now. This is wrong on the face of it - no need for protracted debate to see that this is another example of the strong using the weak for their (our) own ends.

I was almost able to ignore our (USA's) past arrogance, our willingness to utilize political and military pressure to inappropriately enforce our will on others; but this is seriously over the top. Human experimentation? Paging Doctor Mengele.

In closing, somebody please tell me that these are multinational corporations, not USA-based?

(the silence was thunderous in its intensity)

Re:Wait

[jemenake]

Swave An deBwoner wrote:

"Yes, it is dangerous work," he said, wiping his face on a blackened sleeve. "But there is no other work we know how to do. We are helpless."

It certainly appears to me from the above quote that "Mobeen" considers himself and his coworkers exploited in this situation

I didn't take his words as meaning exploited. It sounded, to me, like he was a guy with very few options and he knew it... but they are options nonetheless. Keep in mind that nobody else is more affected by the guy's decision than he is... and he's deciding to do this. He has decided that risking personal injury is worth not starving to death.

Imagine if someone came to him one day and said "Mobeen, some Americans have decided that you were being exploited. So, to save you from exploitation, you're going to have to be unemployed from now on.". Something tells me that would make as much sense to him as "We had to destroy the village in order to save it".