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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'"
Drug and other critical medical research needs to be conducted and tested on live humans at some point. Some people are going to bite the bullet for humanity, why not India's poor? They are getting paid for it, a nice enough sum that it's worth their health and life. They aren't being forced or coerced into it.
Besides, these people don't have much use in society or a future, especially in India's caste society. This is an excellent opportunity for them to contribute something to better mankind and benefit the rest of us. We should be applauding and congratulating them for their sacrifice. We shouldn't try to take this away from them.
Some people will be angry with this, but if not them, then who's going to do this?
How can giving poor people money for taking medication that may be a little risky be a bad thing? Especially if their participation could eventually lead to better medication that saves lives....
"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."
I can't tell if he's being serious, but if he truly does have no moral qualms about that last statement, then he frightens me.
cheers, ben
Never miss a good chance to shut up -- Will Rogers
FTA: "But in March, everything changed when India submitted to pressure from the World Trade Organization to stop the practice and implement rules that prohibit local companies from creating generic versions of patented drugs."
WHy do they want to prevent that? What about in the U.S. where we have things like Walgreen's Wal-tussin to compete with Robitussin (same ingredients, cheaper cost for the consumer)? (same with Sudafed, etc.) Does this fall under the kind of thing WTO wants to stop?
I'm not sure what kind of FDA-equivalent the Indian government has, but there's definitely an advantage to conducting your human trials in places where people aren't breathing down your neck.
I'll bet that India and the rest of the "developing" world will be the next scientific powers given their highly educated and motivated workforce, and the fact that they're a little less backward when it comes to science. Example: South Korea is taking on a cloning project while we're still fighting over teaching evolution in school, abortion and stem cell research.
Sometimes it makes me wish we'd let the South win the civil war. They could live in backward redneck-land and the rest of the country could get on with evolving the species.
How is this any different than the poor people here who get paid to test drugs? Just because it's happening in India now as well it's news? Yes India is another developed country just like ours with people who want to get paid to pop pills. As well as get paid to do all the same things we do. It's not like they're an alien race or something.
The Constant Gardener anyone?
All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be
Please tell me that these posters aren't serious. Why don't we just eat their babies? After all, it will let the Indian poor have a means of useful production and keep their population growth down.
Its not funny, but is a grave ethical issue. The poverty is being misused to coerce them into becoming lab animals of which they really don't speculate much because of ignorance and illiteracy. The winners are the multinationals who keep filling their pockets with money.
This isin't about saving a few bucks (yes I know its more then a few bucks) on medical testing its about not respecting human life in an equal manner.
"Third World lives are worth much less than the European lives. That is what colonialism was all about," said Srirupa Prasad, a visiting assistant professor of medical history and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
hits the nail on the head. unfortunatly.
Reality is a big nasty dragon. Fortunately I don't believe in dragons.
Corporate pigs shipping work out to places that have NO health and safety laws... all in the name of short term shareholder profits. These bastards have NO ethics... how would they feel if they themselves were on the breadline with no job protection and the only work available being dirty, shit jobs exported from countries that should know better
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
For years people right here in the US have been selling body fluids and enrolling in drug trials to make extra cash.
But there's a moral issue when it is done in some other country?
Can we quite patronizing the people? They're poor not retarded.
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
This sounds like a recipe for disaster. I, personally, would avoid drugs that had not been tested on people genetically similar to myself. People are not identical in their ability to absorb, metabolize, respond to, or excrete medications. A drug that works well in one population can easily fail to help (or have fatal side effects) in people in a different population.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I have been to India on several occasions and find it irresponsible of not only companies but also other countries to sell banned drugs, pesticides and a wrath of other 'goodies' in India. I saw first hand pesticides that are banned in North America being used openly, old drugs, and of course questionable mixtures of leaded gasoline, kerosene, and others thereby creating a lot of pollution.
Given that India is considered to be a developing nation, it is irresponsible of the 'west' to dump their banned substances there and in other countries. This creates new caste system of sorts - Westerners get good, safe chemicals, while the rest goes 'elsewhere' - thereby needlessly affecting millions of people.
Unfortunately, this issue is not headline news and does not get the attention it deserves.
Seems to me that the Indian govt is at fault as well. Obviously, health codes and what not needs to be enforced.
sri
Yeah, you're right. Without question. But someone's gotta be the first to test a drug. The real problem here is that the drug companies are trying to act without the restrictions of the US. Were they operating under the same restrictions over there, then I really wouldn't have much of a problem here at all, since someone, somewhere, has to be the first.
The US/FDA COULD refuse to accept or deny the right to sale to any drug that is tested without adhering to the same restrictions/rules that they would have to in the US. Test subjects would still be cheaper, but at least there would be incentive for treating these people decently.
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
are a result of the many barbaric experiments done by Nazi scientists
on their prisoners back in WWII.
I think this is not exactly the case. More to the tune of "...a lot of the medical advancements we enjoyed in the 50s and 60s..."
So are the insights they gained from their immoral experiements bad enough that we shouldnt use it on moral grounds?
Back then, the origin of the studies was just conveniently forgotten. Unlike Dr. Mengele, his boss (Adolf Butenandt) managed to continue his career in post-war Germany - mainly by vigorously destroying every evidence of his deeds. Mengele fled to South America but his research was (in parts) considered the de-facto standard until the early sixties - he himself being a good scape-goat, too, taking most of the guilt of the rest of the staff with him.
The reason, the concentration-camps were so attractive to all kinds of bio-scientist at that time were really two-fold:
- total lack of regulations
- the possibility to generate an mind-staggering amount of samples in a very short time
(previous studies on twins, one of Dr. Mengele's favorite projects, had taken years and were taken on a much smaller sample)I must assume, it's the same in India today, again: lot's of samples, little paper-work. If corporations don't apply any ethics, things will run out of control, again. It may even run out of control with more regulation - after all, who can counter the killer-argument of "but it may cure xyz-cancer or AIDS".
In the current climate of "sacrifice some lives for many/some freedoms for the big-picture", it's only a small step.
Don't rely on the assumption that scientists will just do "the right thing" - more often than not, the prospect of being able to "advance science" will just open new abysses, which later generations will look down with disgust and horror.
cheers,
Rainer
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
Some people associated with PeTA do have their hearts in the right place, have a bit of common sense, and have no idea that the ASPCA exists and has so for over a hundred years.
Most of PeTA, including their founder, ARE nutjobs hippies and hate humans.
I would feel better doing a dirty job than having no job and starving to death.
Maybe we need a whole 'nother category for moderators. Parent is not flamebait. It is libertarian hogwash. It is advocating for a very dangerous form of laissez faire capitalism. But it really is too nuanced and logical to be flamebait.
Now to address the thread. I'm not Indian, but I have lived in India as well as various places in Africa. The problem with this type of drug testing really has nothing to do with coercion or the inability to give informed consent. It really has to do with oversight and regulation. In both Africa and South Asia most folks just don't trust government officials to act in the best interest of the populace. This allows unscrupulous researchers to act unscrupulously knowing the most of their subjects won't go to local officials even if something goes terribly wrong. Meanwhile, those appointed to assure the safety of the process feel left out of the loop and are then quick to take some extra perks since they, accurately, see themselves as mostly irrelevant anyway. This sets up a vicious cycle which leads to more poor research and exploitation. But don't ever equate poor and uneducated with naive and gullible. I accept as a truism that if given accurate information individual will make the best decision for themselves. They will not "try the pharmacological equivalent of rat poison."
I think as long as the human animals involved can make an informed choice and aren't physically forced or coerced to participate, PeTA will indeed be thrilled.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Since when did offering people a bad choice equal "coercion"?
And why does everybody always assume that poverty equals stupidity?
For all we know, the vast majority of these test subjects are thinking, "sure, it's a sketchy deal, but in this cruel world a man's gotta make tough choices sometimes. Me? I'm happy to be able to sacrifice my body for the sake of my family's wellbeing. If this were the Stone Age, I wouldn't even have this opportunity."
It's not like the article gives us any indication that they're not thinking this. In fact, the author seems to be stuck somewhere between "making up shit to worry about" and "bothering to find out what the situation actually is". This merits serious consideration how?
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
"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."
/. post:
Fool. The issue at hand here is that these people are poor and vulnerable. Testing drugs on them is abusive. Maybe you failed to pick up the point that this is exploitation, and without the dehabilitating poverty, these Indians would never consider being part of the research program.
The moral here, as I saw very well illustrated in another
"If you don't give a fuck when it's not your ass on the line, don't except anyone else to give a fuck when it is"
The lesson here:
You're a selfish fuck, who doesn't give a damn about anyone except yourself.
I'm sure this'll get modded flamebait in this crowd, but...
Alternate Spin: If you could not feed your family or yourself, and you could not find work, would you not want any opportunity you could get? I would. I'd take whatever employment could be found, because it would mean food on the table. I'd also be pretty mad at people like you, who would prefer that I did not have that opportunity.
Is it worst to have these terrible jobs or no jobs at all?
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
Well, what with the oppressive regulation and massive lawsuits here in the U.S. I believe there's only one pharma company that still claims to be U.S. based (Merck) and I think they're moving operations to England. I know that something like 90% of all medicines are now produced outside the U.S., so I think your worries that these companies are U.S. are likely to be unfounded. The raging nanny state legislation in the U.S. has made it almost impossible to do any medical research here.
Seriously, what are you smoking? I don't see anything in the text of that page that says "Hey, we'd love it if you could blow up some more people, just make sure you strap up one of your compatriates next time. Donkeys are better than people." The point of the letter was that animals are getting stuck in the crossfire and nobody seems to notice. Whether it will make one bit of difference or not that they wrote the letter aside, what is wrong with that focus? Your reasoning is like that of people who say 'oh, don't give computers to Africans because they need food and water before anything else.' Ignoring the fact, for a moment, that many (most) Africans are not in the fly-ridden state Sally Struthers shows you, what is wrong with addressing a problem that may not be the main problem, e.g. animals are also being harmed by long-standing this conflict? Is it just the wording you object to? Maybe the colors on their page? The name 'Ingrid' gives you a chill?
Ethics matter; ethics help assure good science.
There's definitely an advantage to conducting your human trials in places where people aren't breathing down your neck.
Ever frakkin' wonder why the FDA dares to breath down peoples necks? Do you think that people should be informed of the risks of the test; the potential for long term harm. Do you want pharmaceutical companies to document the positive and the adverse reactions of medical testing?
Thank God we've found poor, uneducated people living in a country with a rampant caste system - where the poor are of even less spiritual value than the elite! Testing can proceed apace. And don't worry, the ends do justify the means.
Gee, the South Koreans can have cloning by having one of their lab assistants donate her eggs - amongst numerous other problems with that particular series of experiments.
/* Dang, I can't type that well. */
Personally I cannot blame American companies for doing something like this - after all, they are running a business. It is really the Indian Government's reponsibility to ensure high standards and proper accountability for drug testing. But then, a small "donation" of a few thousand dollars is often enough to buy the silence of most govt. officials.
Denial is not a river in Egypt
This need not even be a Bad Thing. The janitor in the school where I work participates in medical studies three or four times a year (as much as he is allowed to) and he makes more money than I do. He doesn't suffer a bit from it and if I had more spare time I would consider joining him. Clinical studies are not necessarily dangerous. Sometimes they just want to see if a medicine has side effects, makes you sleepy or so. I don't think they want to find out the mortality rate.
However, when a corporation decides to "shop around" and find the cheapest solution to their problem, I don't see how that's not just a large-scale version of when I go on Froogle to find the cheapest place to get my new DVD burner.
This whole scenario plays into what economists call "factor price equalization". The idea goes something like this: Let's say you're in the business of manufacturing something (like a car engine or whatnot). You've got all of your manufacturing pieces in place except for one: you need ten thousand washers placed on ten thousand bolts. For doing this job, "Joe American" in Detroit wants $10/hr, plus medical, dental, and vision coverage... and 2 weeks per year paid vacation. Meanwhile, Shankar in India will do the same job for $4/day and requires none of the other benefits.
Now, if "Joe American" were able to put the washer on the bolt with an expertise, precision, and efficiency that was simply unmatched by Shankar, then there might be a reason to pay him the 20x as much. However, even if there was such a disparity in skill, it would also have to be worth it to you to have the washers put on the bolts with that extra skill.
Alas, in reality, there is no skill disparity when it comes to tasks as simple as this, so the American worker can offer no advantage to the employer to justify his high price. The "equalization" part of Factor-Price Equalization theory is the observation that, eventually, the prices (in wages and benefits) charged by Joe American and Shankar will equalize. Eventually, increasing competition for Indian labor will drive their price up, while Joe American will finally come to the realization that simply having been born in the USA doesn't make up for the fact that he never finished high-school and he'll face the fact that the value of his labor is much lower than what he was, up until now, able to get away with.
The lesson is clear: If you want to be well-compensated for your work, you need to be able to do something that... A) few other people can do (ie, low supply), and B) many people want/need done (ie, high demand). This lesson isn't new. It's just that we're now starting to see a decrease in people being able to get away with not heeding it.
Now, like I said at the outset, the fact that there exist such squalid conditions in India (and countless other parts of the world) might qualify as a travesty (and how is employing these people doing anything but working towards eliminating that?), but... as has been pointed out here numerous times... the hundreds of workers showing up every day don't consider themselves to be exploited. They call it opportunity.
It certainly appears to me from the above quote that "Mobeen" considers himself and his coworkers exploited in this situation.
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). There's a reason why India is being targeted. I think I can do without those drugs. Even if not using them shortens my life.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Everyone is already concerned about the people. There's tons of organizations out there trying to help people. Just because some other people choose to try to help animals instead doesn't mean they don't think people matter. If you want to bitch about people caring about animals that's up to you, but quit trying to pretend caring about animals equals not caring about people.
that's why i feel bumfights is really helping the homeless.
I'm young, and there is a real chance that ageing will be cured in my lifetime.
No, there is not much of a chance for you. At the earliest, a cure might be available in twenty years. You'll no longer be young, and you'll also likely not be wealthy enough to afford it. Knowing the drug industry, it won't be a cure, anyway. It will be a treatment that requires ongoing, expensive medication. Only the very wealthy will have access.
If the test subjects are well informed, there is nothing morally wrong with this.
Do you ever bother to consider what you're saying before you spew forth your ignorance? There is something morally wrong with exploiting the needy for the benefit of the wealthy. That you cannot see this speaks volumes about your lack of character.
Okay, so by your logic a person being tortured "decides" to give up information. The problem is, the person is in need of food, and instead of a carrot, you hold up a carrot on a stick and make him chase it. Nice.
-- thinkyhead software and media
While absolutely correct about the fact that loonies are everywhere, many of the loonies you cite are left leaning loonies. We're really not afraid of them, because when you live in a city, you're exposed to everything, and you can choose not to listen. We're afraid of the Pat Robertsons, Kansas State Board of Ed, and the other theo-fascists who want to control people. Yes, Wiccans are annoying, but they don't try to legislate their values on others.
I am an Indian and I disagree with most things you said - please do not make this an "India" vs "USA" contest. Also, please do not say that Indians value human life more than Americans. In my experience, I have seen the opposite to be true. I agree that USA has been far more aggressive and has indulged in many more wars than India and this despite the fact that USA has been surrounded on all sides by friendly nations unlike India which is surrounded on all sides by nations with varying levels of hostility towards India.
This is perhaps because Americans are far more aggressive as a people while Indians tend to be either passive or indifferent.
Neither of these are positive attributes. This is reflected even at a micro scale if you look at smaller communities of Indians. The average Indian is very indifferent to everything around him and is intent only on getting his selfish needs met. We can see this indifferent attitude in the way Indians treat the poor, the disabled, women's issues, crime against children, child labour, civic resposibilities, the wide scale corruption etc.
If someone has an accident on the road in India and requires immediate medical attention to save their lives, it is likely that most Indians will not do anything and just walk on by because we don't want the inconvenience of having to spend an hour or so answering questions from the cops if they need any clarifications. I have witnessed this callousness first-hand and when I helped the injured person, I was actually told by others not to bother.
Also, I am sick and tired of this stupid victim complex many Indians have where they feel that we deserve everything because we had the British who ruled us for a couple of centuries. One of the reasons we were ruled by so few Britishers is because of the corrupt and callous nature of the Indian ruling class which basically sold out Indians to the British. Unfortunately this self-serving, disgusting attitudes have still not gone away.
So before we start throwing stones at anyone, lets first look at our glass house.
The problem is not so much as it being done in India on the cheap and on poor but rather that the companies are trying to do an end run around the FDA regulations in this manner. The regulations exist for a reason- they save lives.
**Life is too short to be serious**