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I used to run an outbound medical tourism consultancy in China. Another NYT China hitpiece. Fact: This is not limited to China, it is a global phenomenon driven

I used to run an outbound medical tourism consultancy in China. Another NYT China hitpiece. Fact: This is not limited to China, it is a global phenomenon driven by the extreme profiteering of big pharma. I have personally seen medical systems in other countries leak legitimate medicines on the open market through fake 'patients' at hospitals. In addition: China has WAY more drug companies than any other country, and largely freer distribution. You can often purchase foreign medicine in China without issue. India has stood up to the status quo with its forward-looking stance on generics. European big-pharma has been extremely vicious in the deployment of propaganda throughout Asia to discourage generics and off-label, and has been assisted in this endeavor by the French state.

draw_down 8y ago
The article is about what happens in China. It does not claim the phenomenon is exclusive to China.
jjcc 8y ago
The movie mentioned in the report triggered a lot of discussions online. One question that troubled many Chinese was: Why Chinese need to smuggle cheap drugs instead of producing their own equivalent. The difference is obviously the IP cost of drugs owned by the big pharma because Chinese companies have the capability to produce the drugs. Then why China can not violate those IPs while India can? A popular explanation by some experts was: A US company had a disastrous accident in the 80's caused thousands of Indians death and blind. So US never put a pressure on India government to enforce the IP laws. But China is different. There's no way to have a scalable drug production without violate those drug IPs. I don't know the explaination is accurate or not.
- vertline3 8y ago
  There was union carbide accident in the 1980's a tragedy.
- throwaway423443 8y ago
  Bhopal incident. It's easily one of the worth industrial accidents in the world, and the then PM whisked Union Carbide's head out of India, instead of prosecuting his firm for the cleanup. That hasn't stopped the Americans from lobbying though. China routinely violates tech IPs by Americans' own reporting; I'm surprised as to why they'd not do the same for drugs.
  - jjcc 8y ago
    Here's very interesting difference of 2 cases about the statement "China violated many US IPs": 1.US IPs are violated in China. 2.Chinese government deliberately let Chinese companies violate US IPs. They are not the same meaning. But media mislead Western audience to believe the second version by some tricky narrative and hide partial truth. The real situation is more complicated
    - CamTin 8y ago
      Nothing happens in big business in China without a stamp of approval from Beijing. The reverse is true in the US, where Washington politicians need their report card signed by business interests, but it amounts to the same thing: there is no meaningful reason to distinguish between business elites and political elites in either system.
- charlysl 8y ago
  There's even a book about this unpunished tragedy, by Dominique Lapierre: "Five Past Midnight in Bhopal: The Epic Story of the World's Deadliest Industrial Disaster" On the night of December 3, 1984, a cyanide cloud drifted over the streets of Bhopal, India, set loose by a leak in a nearby chemical plant. When the deadly fog lifted untold numbers of the city's residents--perhaps as many as 30,000, by some accounts--lay dead, while half a million others were injured. Dominique Lapierre, a French journalist and longtime champion of India's poor, joins with Spanish writer Javier Moro to recount the terrors of that night, about which the whole truth may never be known. The deaths are but one part of the authors' long, sometimes elaborate tale, which relates how the industrial conglomerate Union Carbide had come to build its vast chemical complex at Bhopal, one meant to be a glory of technology and, ironically, to save thousands of lives brought low by insect-wrought starvation. There are few villains but many heroes in the authors' account, which explores the margins at which good intentions conflict with the profit motive, at which cost-cutting omissions yield horrifically unintended consequences. It all makes for a thoughtful and disturbing book.
refurb 8y ago
Yeah, India is very forward thinking about generics.[1] Ranbaxy executives didn’t care, says Kathy Spreen, and made little effort to conceal it. In a conference call with a dozen company executives, one brushed aside her fears about the quality of the AIDS medicine Ranbaxy was supplying for Africa. “Who cares?” he said, according to Spreen. “It’s just blacks dying.” [1]https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2013/05/17/a_little_ranbaxy_example https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2013/05/17/a_...
- lenkite 8y ago
  There were consequences to this. There was an uproar over this in India at the time. Ranbaxy paid 500 million in settlement in felony charges related to drug safety. Finally, the company was acquired by Sun Pharma who fired most of the executives and staff.
- shard972 8y ago
  One of the worst companies I have ever had the pleasure of working with. Everything is just seemingly beneath them including their own jobs.
throwaway423443 8y ago
India is also under pressure from the American state to cut down on generics; European pressure is apparently more in terms of supposed "human rights" violations. There have been rumors that India will buckle to this pressure, but I'm not sure when this will be. India's economy is currently not in a decent state, and if it becomes inevitable for IMF/WB to come 'rescue' it, this will almost certainly be on the agenda.
baud147258 8y ago
> European big-pharma has discouraged generics and off-label, and has been assisted in this endeavor by the French state. Regarding France, I find odd (hypocrite?) that the French state is pushing against generics abroad, whereas locally the (state-run) social security system and health ministry are pushing for generics, because they are cheaper (and thus cheaper to refund).

draw_down 8y ago

The article is about what happens in China. It does not claim the phenomenon is exclusive to China.

jjcc 8y ago

The movie mentioned in the report triggered a lot of discussions online. One question that troubled many Chinese was: Why Chinese need to smuggle cheap drugs instead of producing their own equivalent. The difference is obviously the IP cost of drugs owned by the big pharma because Chinese companies have the capability to produce the drugs. Then why China can not violate those IPs while India can? A popular explanation by some experts was: A US company had a disastrous accident in the 80's caused thousands of Indians death and blind. So US never put a pressure on India government to enforce the IP laws. But China is different. There's no way to have a scalable drug production without violate those drug IPs. I don't know the explaination is accurate or not.

vertline3 8y ago
There was union carbide accident in the 1980's a tragedy.
throwaway423443 8y ago
Bhopal incident. It's easily one of the worth industrial accidents in the world, and the then PM whisked Union Carbide's head out of India, instead of prosecuting his firm for the cleanup. That hasn't stopped the Americans from lobbying though. China routinely violates tech IPs by Americans' own reporting; I'm surprised as to why they'd not do the same for drugs.
- jjcc 8y ago
  Here's very interesting difference of 2 cases about the statement "China violated many US IPs": 1.US IPs are violated in China. 2.Chinese government deliberately let Chinese companies violate US IPs. They are not the same meaning. But media mislead Western audience to believe the second version by some tricky narrative and hide partial truth. The real situation is more complicated
  - CamTin 8y ago
    Nothing happens in big business in China without a stamp of approval from Beijing. The reverse is true in the US, where Washington politicians need their report card signed by business interests, but it amounts to the same thing: there is no meaningful reason to distinguish between business elites and political elites in either system.
charlysl 8y ago
There's even a book about this unpunished tragedy, by Dominique Lapierre: "Five Past Midnight in Bhopal: The Epic Story of the World's Deadliest Industrial Disaster" On the night of December 3, 1984, a cyanide cloud drifted over the streets of Bhopal, India, set loose by a leak in a nearby chemical plant. When the deadly fog lifted untold numbers of the city's residents--perhaps as many as 30,000, by some accounts--lay dead, while half a million others were injured. Dominique Lapierre, a French journalist and longtime champion of India's poor, joins with Spanish writer Javier Moro to recount the terrors of that night, about which the whole truth may never be known. The deaths are but one part of the authors' long, sometimes elaborate tale, which relates how the industrial conglomerate Union Carbide had come to build its vast chemical complex at Bhopal, one meant to be a glory of technology and, ironically, to save thousands of lives brought low by insect-wrought starvation. There are few villains but many heroes in the authors' account, which explores the margins at which good intentions conflict with the profit motive, at which cost-cutting omissions yield horrifically unintended consequences. It all makes for a thoughtful and disturbing book.

refurb 8y ago

Yeah, India is very forward thinking about generics.[1] Ranbaxy executives didn’t care, says Kathy Spreen, and made little effort to conceal it. In a conference call with a dozen company executives, one brushed aside her fears about the quality of the AIDS medicine Ranbaxy was supplying for Africa. “Who cares?” he said, according to Spreen. “It’s just blacks dying.” [1]https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2013/05/17/a_little_ranbaxy_example https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2013/05/17/a_...

lenkite 8y ago
There were consequences to this. There was an uproar over this in India at the time. Ranbaxy paid 500 million in settlement in felony charges related to drug safety. Finally, the company was acquired by Sun Pharma who fired most of the executives and staff.
shard972 8y ago
One of the worst companies I have ever had the pleasure of working with. Everything is just seemingly beneath them including their own jobs.

throwaway423443 8y ago

India is also under pressure from the American state to cut down on generics; European pressure is apparently more in terms of supposed "human rights" violations. There have been rumors that India will buckle to this pressure, but I'm not sure when this will be. India's economy is currently not in a decent state, and if it becomes inevitable for IMF/WB to come 'rescue' it, this will almost certainly be on the agenda.

baud147258 8y ago

> European big-pharma has discouraged generics and off-label, and has been assisted in this endeavor by the French state. Regarding France, I find odd (hypocrite?) that the French state is pushing against generics abroad, whereas locally the (state-run) social security system and health ministry are pushing for generics, because they are cheaper (and thus cheaper to refund).