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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'"
So now we are outsourcing the jobs of lab animals to India?? And I shudder to think what the "No Indian testing" label will be in Europe (maybe a big hand patting a meditating guru on the head?)
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
"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.
So first they took away our call centers... Then they took away our IT jobs... Now they're taking our priviledge to test dangerous drugs on the poor and destitute?
Damn you trained and abled Indian workforce!
I guess India's poor cost less to test on the the US bunny rabbit, I for one can not believe companies would take away jobs from som many bunnies I can't even imagine how bunnies can take care of their large families.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
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?
The Miracle of Birth, Part 2: The Third World
Mom: Come on, now. Out you go. Now, uh, Dalip, Bhim, Harinder, Ajit, Indra, Mandeep, it is being past your bedtime.
Kids: Oh, mother!
Mom: Now, not to be arguing! Lakshmi, Sita, Gita, Surinder...
Dad: Wait! I have something to be telling whole family.
Mom: Oh, quick - please to be going and getting the others in, Pradeep.
Kids: What could it be being?
Dad: The call center is closed! There is to be no more work. We are now to live among the untouchable.
Kids: [whispering among themselves]
Dad: Come in my little loves, I am having no option but to be selling you all for scientific experiments.
(Dad goes on to blame the Anglican church for not standing up to the (bloody) Catholics (who are to be filling up the whole world with children they cannot afford to be bloody feeding) when it came to talking about contraception in the UN and WHO forums on overpopulation, and the whole family breaks out into song... You know the rest.)
There are Jews in the world, there are Buddhists,
Anglicans and Catholics, and then,
There are those that outsource to Mohammed, but
I've never been one of them...
Not only are research costs low, but there is a skilled work force to conduct the trials.
Umm, so essentially their skill is they're sick and need drugs? Talk about a back handed compliment. Well, Rahim, you have just the skills we're looking for, Leprosy.
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.
Some would say the difference between life as a dahlit and life as a dahlit after being paid for it is most certainly a form of force and coercion.
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.
So you agree- givent he caste system they don't have any real choice at all.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
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.
If you have seen the film "Constant Gardener", you can see the problems associated with this practice. The main problem is lack of accountability. So what if a couple people die from these drug tests. They are poor, no one is going to miss them. No one will fight for them.
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
I do recall that a lot of the medical advancements we are enjoying today are a result of the many barbaric experiments done by Nazi scientists on their prisoners back in WWII. So are the insights they gained from their immoral experiements bad enough that we shouldnt use it on moral grounds?
"Not only are research costs low, but there is a skilled work force to conduct the trials," he said. In the rush to reap profits, Philpott cautions that drug companies may not be sensitive to how poverty can undermine the spirit of informed consent. "Individuals who participate in Indian clinical trials usually won't be educated. Offering $100 may be undue enticement; they may not even realize that they are being coerced," he said.
"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.)
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
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.
In other news: No more animals are used for testing, all animal rights activist rejoice!
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
http://www.novartisclinicaltrials.com/etrials/home .do?pl_id=bmretk000019
n eapigFULL.html
http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/syws/guineapig/gui
Why go to India's poor ? The poor in the US can go to these links and do all types of experiments, for a variety of disorders.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
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.
Sadly, abusing the underprivileged and poor for medical reasons occurs more frequently than one would think. For example, in addidtion to drug testing, during surgical residencies, most of the interns learn new procedures on the homeless or poor that in the hospital. Residents have to learn techniques somehow, and they are inevitably going to deliever sub-par results the first few times of doing something. Thus, the practice of using the underprivileged as "test-dummies" is unstated but widley accepted. Ideas for solutions to this moral dilemma?
check out my music biatches. www.seanduffymusic.com
I know her as well, and it's been a real boon for her. Turns out her second head can control it almost entirely so her grades are unnatural. And don't let her challenge you to a game of twister.
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
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
You are the most callous person I have seen among the ./ crowd.
Sure, let the street girls turn the tricks. They are getting paid for it. Otherwise they might end up on welfare and we will have to share the burden of assisting them through taxes.
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.
Such practices are not new. Here is another example: "New York's HIV experiment" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/this_world/4 038375.stm
No, its pretty much spot on. Everything disgusting and offensive in this topic is pretty much confined to the drug company's actions.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Maybe we can put some of these poor into concentrated areas. Maybe camps. Maybe call them concentrated camps or maybe concentration camps where you can perform drug tests, and also other helpful experiments.
Last I checked, those people in camps weren't paid. Secondly, they didn't volunteer. Lastly, most of them weren't poor until their personal property wasn't forcefully removed from their persons.
Look, these people are poor but they'd rather be poor than be those people that went to those camps.
Oh and I bet you are unaware of the underground medical trade in southeast asia. People have been known to sell off kidneys and spare eyes to make ends meat. They are going to be volunteering for money on a lot of medical things whether you like it or not.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Don't lecture us, we Indians invented Karma.
Slashdot just profits off of our idea, and hides behing their "patents are evil" sudo-ideology.
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.
I fully understand the importance of the FDA. It is extremely important to the safety of the American public and its doctors to have a reliable and unbiased source of information regarding drugs.
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.
There is a place like that. It's called "Hippie Fantasyland."
Again, I must reiterate with:
http://www.peta.org/feat/arafat/
Lack of diversity during certain phases is a good thing. It improves the signal to noise ratio in the statistics. It's why they use identical white mice. It's a bad move, when you extrapolate. Which is what someone did in your example. Luckily they erred on the safe side. Still, a good study should move from the narrow to the broad.
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!
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
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.
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.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
It is people like you that would rather the poor stay poor rather then allow them any chance because of your own guilty conscience.
I've heard a similar argument applied to the slave trade...
These people are not becoming human lab rats for disposible income. They are becoming lab rats to afford the basics in life. There is a difference between giving opportunity and economic slavery.
Economics aside these people should be warned and made understanding of the dangers. Which according to the article they are not.
I have funny experience with Indian medicines.
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.
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.
Some people will be angry with this, but if not them, then who's going to do this?
Hmmm..let's see. Hope you lose your house, your job, all your money. Then I'll pay you pennies to be a human guinea pig. And by your understanding, you'll be happy to take the job and consider that as your contribution to the society?
Poor (no matter where they are from/what color their skin is) who become human guinea pig, are forced into this because of the financial disparity. They don't see this as their "use to the society". And worse still, it hurts me if the rest think of it as their "use to the society". I rather feel ashamed of our incapabity to help them in the first place.
And another thing, by your philosophy, "worth of life/health" == bank balance.
Hey, Bill Gates wants to buy your kidneys. A billion dollars should be more than your life's worth. Your family for one should be happy to sell you.
Don't you see that your philosophy justifies buying/selling of human organs, prostitution etc in one go.
Actually, you missed another opportunity. So many people in south asia lost their home/belongings during the tsunami. You should have paid them their life's worth and used them for experiments.
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?
It's interesting to see that when you want to post such obviously fascist drivel (just compare what you've expressed here with the justifications the Nazis gave for all their abhorent experiments on concentration camp victims), you haven't the balls to post with your id.
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. */
I for one see the point you are making here. PETA is for the ethical treatment of animals. An animal was blown up in a fairly unethical way, thus this falls under PETAs charter. The fact that they have this charter in no way presumes they have any less respect for humans, but there are plenty of other groups already focused on the ethical treatment of humans. The fact that they issued this letter in no way proves that PETA would condone a person being blown up in the same way, but that isn't their focus. Again, other groups are already working on these issues, and quite probably most PETA members are also members of one or more of these groups and therefore see no need for PETA, as a group, to get involved with the human issues of terrorism.
;) About the worst I could say about the worst of them (having lived with a few) is that they generally smell bad (this coming from a nerd, and we aren't known for our hygiene)and are anti social, at least to the extent that they never do their own dishes, refuse to participate in social activities, and pay bills late. Anti-human? Sort of. But not in a 'kill all humans' kind of way, more like 'you all depress me so much I'm going off for a good long sulk.'
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.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
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
Some people work harder than others and should reasonably expect to be compensated to a greater degree.
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.
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.
I remember the good 'ol days when laid-off outsourced american programmers would get the guinneypig jobs. Now those are gone too :-)
Table-ized A.I.
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**