10 ms·

Is this system not preferable over just trashing anything not perfectly made? Sure it would be nice if everyone can have perfectly manufactured medicine, but th

by speff 1y ago

Is this system not preferable over just trashing anything not perfectly made? Sure it would be nice if everyone can have perfectly manufactured medicine, but that's not reality. I would think something that's still likely good is still better than nothing.

colechristensen 1y ago
There's a difference between a few percent difference in efficacy which is understandably still marketed (the same kind of thing happens when you leave meds on the shelf a while) and meds that are no longer effective at all to a reasonable level or toxic.
Spooky23 1y ago
Why should a person in Somalia suffer and die from cancer while a person in Ohio, lives, soley on the basis of where they live?
- protocolture 1y ago
  Why should they not get access to drugs because the drugs would fail some bogus test made up by an american senator?
  - bilbo0s 1y ago
    More accurate to say they should get access to drugs that contain the actual molecules they are advertised to have across markets. You shouldn't be able to sell what is basically sugar water in Somalia and call it cyclophosphamide. That's fraud if I do it as a private citizen. In fact it's even fraud for me if I buy actual cyclophosphamide, and cut it with a bio compatible totally non reactive filler compound. How are these people getting away with it without the president and senators being on the take? When they'd run you or I down in less than a month for effectively the same act? To be clear, I don't believe you or I should be able to do this. But I know what happens to private citizens who try to do things of this nature. So there is no question that this is a crime. The only question is why is it not prosecuted for larger corporations.
    - MichaelZuo 1y ago
      How do you know they would advertise it as unmodified cyclophosphamide (identical to the US product) in Somalia?
  - EnPissant 1y ago
    Who is going to pay for the replacement drug?
  - Spooky23 1y ago
    The point of the article was that counterfeit drugs are ineffective or killing people, bro.
  - hinkley 1y ago
    Do you remember what thread yours responding to? Here I’ll remind you: nearly 20% of cancer drugs defective in four African nations. That’s the context. What on earth are you talking about?
    - protocolture 1y ago
      Did you read tfa? >roughly one in six — were found to have incorrect active ingredient levels >But some drugs are also counterfeit, and that increases the risk of discrepancies between what's on the product label and the actual medicine within. If I was desperate, and given a choice between either 1 of "Might have incorrect active ingredient levels" "Might be counterfeit" "Might have been stored improperly" or "No cancer drugs for you" I know which way I would be leaning. "Defective" is doing a lot of work in this headline.
- beeflet 1y ago
  the person in somalia likely has a different cost/effectiveness preference vs the american, which is expressed through the lack of regulation.
  - jenny91 1y ago
    To elaborate on this, if the individual in Somalia didn't want to die from said cancer and preferred better regulation, they would readily move to Ohio.
    - nhaehnle 1y ago
      I sincerely hope both of you are just trying to make a joke. I don't think a web forum like this one is the right place for it, though.
      - itsanaccount 1y ago
        hope all you want i think understanding what this site reveals about the world view of investor/dev types is a kind of sociological? shock. its like everyone learning during covid their neighbors would kill every service worker to avoid the inconvenience of making their own coffee. it leaves a mark. see what happened to the poor n-gate.com fellow, burned him out
  - LtWorf 1y ago
    The person in somalia doesn't live in a country where the managers of the pharmaceutical company live and can be arrested.
    - Kwpolska 1y ago
      Can the managers of the pharmaceutical company really be arrested in the US? Arrests are for poor people.
      - overfeed 1y ago
        As Matt Levine would say: inefficacious cancer drugs sold in the American market would be egregious securities fraud[1] if the shareholders are not informed by company offices ahead of time. The resulting shareholder lawsuit may cost some managers their jobs. There is also the (minute) risk of getting Luigi'd by someone a state over, whose loved one they suspected to have gotten a bad batch and didn't get better. 1. "Everything is securities fraud" is a running series showing the breadth and depth of how shareholders exercise their rights in creative ways.
- monero-xmr 1y ago
  Why shouldn't every single person on earth immediately be granted citizenship to America and allowed access to all forms of welfare given to citizens? It's unfair to them
  - ben_w 1y ago
    Speaking as a non-American, the dysfunction of US healthcare was one of the reasons I decided against the USA when considering an international move. Not the primary reason, but it was part of it.
    - monero-xmr 1y ago
      America is weird in that the poorest get significantly more benefits than the merely lower-middle class. And the majority of Americans pay no federal tax after EITC and other refunds. You can get SNAP (free food), Section 8 (free housing), Medicaid (healthcare, CHIP for kids is easier than adults, but still many people get it), and if you manage to raise smart kids despite poverty they will get college for free as well (most highly-selective universities are free for the poor, but extremely expensive for even the middle class). I own a lot of rental property and I have a Section 8 tenant who has never worked, completely gamed the system with a subjective disability that renders her unable to ever hold a job (supposedly). A good tenant but is constantly trying to give away tons of food she buys because she always tries to spend the SNAP she gets every month. And she gets free heat, and electricity, and public transportation pass, and on and on.
      - Aeglaecia 1y ago
        through my eyes i see a similar implication to disproprortionate judicial punishment - aspects of a hegemonic system designed to suppress individual voices. for example, pirates in the UK being handed jail terms of greater duration than those given to individuals having killed other humans - people daring to go against the powerful have their lives taken away from them, whereas infighting within the working class is almost encouraged by miniscule sentencing. or in this case, why bother putting any effort into life when doing nothing provides a greater reward? why attempt to make something of oneself at the risk of losing everything forever? all in all, whether or not intentionally curated, these societal facets serve to foment an atmosphere of fear - individuals are forced to exist either in ignorance, or otherwise must live with the knowledge that minor infractions may end one's dreams, while concurrently one's dreams may be ended at any time for no reason but the whim of another. such a dichotomy between ignorance and fear effectively suppresses societal change, which if it were to happen anyway, would be instantly detected by automated surveillance, and promptly quashed under fully legal pretences. but that's not even necessary. the populace is already addicted to living vicariously through screens (now from birth thanks to parents being forced to devote energy to work instead of their children). yet the world keeps turning
- defectiveSnail 1y ago
  [dead]
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  They will both die. Cancer treatment is largely useless (this is an editorial statement) Survival statistics are largely dependent on early detection. Detect the cancer early, you live longer after treatment.
  - mrosett 1y ago
    This is an oft-refuted trope that does harm to patients. Numerous randomized phase 3 studies show meaningful survival advantages for modern treatments.
  - andsoitis 1y ago
    > Cancer treatment is largely useless Cancer treatment effectiveness has improved substantially, with many treatments now achieving high cure rates or significantly extending survival. Highly effective treatments: Surgery remains the most curative treatment when cancer is localized and can be completely removed. Complete surgical resection often leads to cure for early-stage solid tumors. Chemotherapy can be curative for several cancers, particularly blood cancers like leukemias and lymphomas. Some testicular cancers and certain pediatric cancers also respond extremely well to chemotherapy alone. Radiation therapy achieves excellent local control and can be curative, especially when combined with surgery or chemotherapy. It’s particularly effective for head and neck cancers, early-stage lung cancers, and certain brain tumors. Revolutionary newer treatments: Immunotherapy has transformed outcomes for melanoma, lung cancer, kidney cancer, and others. Some patients with advanced disease achieve long-term remissions that were previously impossible. Targeted therapies work exceptionally well when tumors have specific genetic mutations. Examples include imatinib for chronic myeloid leukemia (transforming a fatal disease into a manageable condition) and HER2-targeted drugs for breast cancer. CAR-T cell therapy has achieved remarkable results in certain blood cancers that failed other treatments, with some patients achieving complete remissions. Combination approaches: Modern treatment often combines multiple modalities - surgery plus chemotherapy plus radiation, or immunotherapy plus targeted therapy. These combinations frequently outperform single treatments. Current limitations: Some cancers like glioblastoma and pancreatic cancer still have limited treatment options, though research continues. Metastatic disease remains challenging, though increasingly manageable as a chronic condition rather than immediately fatal.
selcuka 1y ago
How do we assess that it's "still likely good" and "still better than nothing"? If they are defective it also means that they might make things worse.
- ben_w 1y ago
  Hopefully that's up to the laws of where the incorrectly processed stuff was allowed to be sold. Hopefully those countries don't reduce standards due to lobbying.
  - gmueckl 1y ago
    A fair number of countries can't do the proper inspections required for this, either due to lack of resources or government corruption (or both). They could put a literal carbon copy of FDA standards into their regulations, but it's meaningless without enforcement.
    - lotsofpulp 1y ago
      >They could put a literal carbon copy of FDA standards into their regulations, but it's meaningless without enforcement. This is funny because the USA itself doesn't do proper inspections. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Eban https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Eban See the book "Bottle of Lies".
  - Hikikomori 1y ago
    I believe we have a long history of companies selling toxic or non working stuff to countries not able to test or make sure its safe themselves.
    - reginald78 1y ago
      See the HIV infected blood products scandal with Bayer. The infected blood was pawned off on the third world since they (correctly) figured they'd have much less success suing them.
hinkley 1y ago
This is literally a post about bad drugs being sold to brown people because they can.

by speff 1y ago

colechristensen 1y ago

There's a difference between a few percent difference in efficacy which is understandably still marketed (the same kind of thing happens when you leave meds on the shelf a while) and meds that are no longer effective at all to a reasonable level or toxic.

Spooky23 1y ago

Why should a person in Somalia suffer and die from cancer while a person in Ohio, lives, soley on the basis of where they live?

protocolture 1y ago
Why should they not get access to drugs because the drugs would fail some bogus test made up by an american senator?
- bilbo0s 1y ago
  More accurate to say they should get access to drugs that contain the actual molecules they are advertised to have across markets. You shouldn't be able to sell what is basically sugar water in Somalia and call it cyclophosphamide. That's fraud if I do it as a private citizen. In fact it's even fraud for me if I buy actual cyclophosphamide, and cut it with a bio compatible totally non reactive filler compound. How are these people getting away with it without the president and senators being on the take? When they'd run you or I down in less than a month for effectively the same act? To be clear, I don't believe you or I should be able to do this. But I know what happens to private citizens who try to do things of this nature. So there is no question that this is a crime. The only question is why is it not prosecuted for larger corporations.
  - MichaelZuo 1y ago
    How do you know they would advertise it as unmodified cyclophosphamide (identical to the US product) in Somalia?
- EnPissant 1y ago
  Who is going to pay for the replacement drug?
- Spooky23 1y ago
  The point of the article was that counterfeit drugs are ineffective or killing people, bro.
- hinkley 1y ago
  Do you remember what thread yours responding to? Here I’ll remind you: nearly 20% of cancer drugs defective in four African nations. That’s the context. What on earth are you talking about?
  - protocolture 1y ago
    Did you read tfa? >roughly one in six — were found to have incorrect active ingredient levels >But some drugs are also counterfeit, and that increases the risk of discrepancies between what's on the product label and the actual medicine within. If I was desperate, and given a choice between either 1 of "Might have incorrect active ingredient levels" "Might be counterfeit" "Might have been stored improperly" or "No cancer drugs for you" I know which way I would be leaning. "Defective" is doing a lot of work in this headline.
beeflet 1y ago
the person in somalia likely has a different cost/effectiveness preference vs the american, which is expressed through the lack of regulation.
- jenny91 1y ago
  To elaborate on this, if the individual in Somalia didn't want to die from said cancer and preferred better regulation, they would readily move to Ohio.
  - nhaehnle 1y ago
    I sincerely hope both of you are just trying to make a joke. I don't think a web forum like this one is the right place for it, though.
    - itsanaccount 1y ago
      hope all you want i think understanding what this site reveals about the world view of investor/dev types is a kind of sociological? shock. its like everyone learning during covid their neighbors would kill every service worker to avoid the inconvenience of making their own coffee. it leaves a mark. see what happened to the poor n-gate.com fellow, burned him out
- LtWorf 1y ago
  The person in somalia doesn't live in a country where the managers of the pharmaceutical company live and can be arrested.
  - Kwpolska 1y ago
    Can the managers of the pharmaceutical company really be arrested in the US? Arrests are for poor people.
    - overfeed 1y ago
      As Matt Levine would say: inefficacious cancer drugs sold in the American market would be egregious securities fraud[1] if the shareholders are not informed by company offices ahead of time. The resulting shareholder lawsuit may cost some managers their jobs. There is also the (minute) risk of getting Luigi'd by someone a state over, whose loved one they suspected to have gotten a bad batch and didn't get better. 1. "Everything is securities fraud" is a running series showing the breadth and depth of how shareholders exercise their rights in creative ways.
monero-xmr 1y ago
Why shouldn't every single person on earth immediately be granted citizenship to America and allowed access to all forms of welfare given to citizens? It's unfair to them
- ben_w 1y ago
  Speaking as a non-American, the dysfunction of US healthcare was one of the reasons I decided against the USA when considering an international move. Not the primary reason, but it was part of it.
  - monero-xmr 1y ago
    America is weird in that the poorest get significantly more benefits than the merely lower-middle class. And the majority of Americans pay no federal tax after EITC and other refunds. You can get SNAP (free food), Section 8 (free housing), Medicaid (healthcare, CHIP for kids is easier than adults, but still many people get it), and if you manage to raise smart kids despite poverty they will get college for free as well (most highly-selective universities are free for the poor, but extremely expensive for even the middle class). I own a lot of rental property and I have a Section 8 tenant who has never worked, completely gamed the system with a subjective disability that renders her unable to ever hold a job (supposedly). A good tenant but is constantly trying to give away tons of food she buys because she always tries to spend the SNAP she gets every month. And she gets free heat, and electricity, and public transportation pass, and on and on.
    - Aeglaecia 1y ago
      through my eyes i see a similar implication to disproprortionate judicial punishment - aspects of a hegemonic system designed to suppress individual voices. for example, pirates in the UK being handed jail terms of greater duration than those given to individuals having killed other humans - people daring to go against the powerful have their lives taken away from them, whereas infighting within the working class is almost encouraged by miniscule sentencing. or in this case, why bother putting any effort into life when doing nothing provides a greater reward? why attempt to make something of oneself at the risk of losing everything forever? all in all, whether or not intentionally curated, these societal facets serve to foment an atmosphere of fear - individuals are forced to exist either in ignorance, or otherwise must live with the knowledge that minor infractions may end one's dreams, while concurrently one's dreams may be ended at any time for no reason but the whim of another. such a dichotomy between ignorance and fear effectively suppresses societal change, which if it were to happen anyway, would be instantly detected by automated surveillance, and promptly quashed under fully legal pretences. but that's not even necessary. the populace is already addicted to living vicariously through screens (now from birth thanks to parents being forced to devote energy to work instead of their children). yet the world keeps turning
defectiveSnail 1y ago
[dead]
SoftTalker 1y ago
They will both die. Cancer treatment is largely useless (this is an editorial statement) Survival statistics are largely dependent on early detection. Detect the cancer early, you live longer after treatment.
- mrosett 1y ago
  This is an oft-refuted trope that does harm to patients. Numerous randomized phase 3 studies show meaningful survival advantages for modern treatments.
- andsoitis 1y ago
  > Cancer treatment is largely useless Cancer treatment effectiveness has improved substantially, with many treatments now achieving high cure rates or significantly extending survival. Highly effective treatments: Surgery remains the most curative treatment when cancer is localized and can be completely removed. Complete surgical resection often leads to cure for early-stage solid tumors. Chemotherapy can be curative for several cancers, particularly blood cancers like leukemias and lymphomas. Some testicular cancers and certain pediatric cancers also respond extremely well to chemotherapy alone. Radiation therapy achieves excellent local control and can be curative, especially when combined with surgery or chemotherapy. It’s particularly effective for head and neck cancers, early-stage lung cancers, and certain brain tumors. Revolutionary newer treatments: Immunotherapy has transformed outcomes for melanoma, lung cancer, kidney cancer, and others. Some patients with advanced disease achieve long-term remissions that were previously impossible. Targeted therapies work exceptionally well when tumors have specific genetic mutations. Examples include imatinib for chronic myeloid leukemia (transforming a fatal disease into a manageable condition) and HER2-targeted drugs for breast cancer. CAR-T cell therapy has achieved remarkable results in certain blood cancers that failed other treatments, with some patients achieving complete remissions. Combination approaches: Modern treatment often combines multiple modalities - surgery plus chemotherapy plus radiation, or immunotherapy plus targeted therapy. These combinations frequently outperform single treatments. Current limitations: Some cancers like glioblastoma and pancreatic cancer still have limited treatment options, though research continues. Metastatic disease remains challenging, though increasingly manageable as a chronic condition rather than immediately fatal.

selcuka 1y ago

How do we assess that it's "still likely good" and "still better than nothing"? If they are defective it also means that they might make things worse.

ben_w 1y ago
Hopefully that's up to the laws of where the incorrectly processed stuff was allowed to be sold. Hopefully those countries don't reduce standards due to lobbying.
- gmueckl 1y ago
  A fair number of countries can't do the proper inspections required for this, either due to lack of resources or government corruption (or both). They could put a literal carbon copy of FDA standards into their regulations, but it's meaningless without enforcement.
  - lotsofpulp 1y ago
    >They could put a literal carbon copy of FDA standards into their regulations, but it's meaningless without enforcement. This is funny because the USA itself doesn't do proper inspections. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Eban https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Eban See the book "Bottle of Lies".
- Hikikomori 1y ago
  I believe we have a long history of companies selling toxic or non working stuff to countries not able to test or make sure its safe themselves.
  - reginald78 1y ago
    See the HIV infected blood products scandal with Bayer. The infected blood was pawned off on the third world since they (correctly) figured they'd have much less success suing them.

hinkley 1y ago

This is literally a post about bad drugs being sold to brown people because they can.