Lokichongo
21-03-2006, 22:03
A while ago I watched the movie "the Constant Gardener" and it got me interested in the topic, so when we did school speeches I researched the topic and got some scary info. here's my speech, give your input on the issue after reading it.
Deadly Giants
Curious isn’t it, how something whose existence is so connected to helping people can also be in the business of killing them.
Pharmaceutical companies are today’s corporate superpowers up there with Oil and Tech making over 5 trillion dollars annually. Companies like Merck, Pfizer, Gilead and GSX seem to have a deathgrip on our governments foreign aid programs, so when the Pharmaceutical companies can send their drugs for HIV, AIDS and TB to government-run clinics in Africa. Its supposedly from the goodness of they’re hearts, a humanitarian gift. HA! No drug company does anything for free, they do it because they get a tax break and because the drugs that they send over there are no longer appropriate for American consumption, its is below CDA and FDA standards, so it goes of to Africa, disposable drugs for disposable patients.
Killing for our Health would be a good quote for this situation, some drugs used on major diseases like AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Cholera, before they go on the market here they are tested on the masses in Africa, instead of spending years perfecting the drug they just give to people at clinics if anyone dies well back to the lab fix the errors then back in to clinic again, few more deaths, bit more lab time, so in the end we have a new product on the line, and about 5000 deaths or in other words murder.
1996 Kora a region in Kenya was having widespread problem with Cholera, Measles and Meningitis. The Pharmaceutical Company Pfizer was working on a drug-TORVAN® it had been deemed unsellable in the US because it had nasty side effects, and had never been tested on children. Pfizer posing as Doctors without Borders an international aid group. Gave doses of TORVAN®
To 9000 children...who are 35% are dead and the rest are having severe health problems.
2001 Dabouta a City in Cameroon was doling out a HIV/AIDS drug, Viread to 1000’s of people daily but the drug which was being supplied by Gilead a British Pharmaceutical Company was actually the drug Tenofovir which had been banned from sale in Britain because it caused miscarriages and Strokes, Gilead was trying to fix the drug but was denied test runs in the UK. The drug was run in Cameroon for 3 years even after the World Health Organization found out. In the end the unofficial total of deaths was 23,000 including unborn children...
1997 Doctors in Pedro Mallo Naval hospital in Morocco were paid 3,000 dollars per patient by Aventis Pharmaceuticals the company that we all know and love who produces a children’s drug Triaminic-forge documents that allowed Aventis to secretly give patients a heart drug called caprotride, when the patient thought they were getting a normal check-up. 25 of the 43 people tested died.
Seems we don’t care much about African’s if we allow people to murder them and then we have a frenzy buying there new products, while the corporations stand there with blood on their hands, we wipe them clean...by buying the product blissfully we are saying “we have no idea what went into creating this drug, but we like it, make more”...so they go off and kill another 5000 people and make another drug. We are just as much to blame as they are.
We endorse them!
And even when the pharmaceuticals are given a chance to do good, given a chance to sell drugs at cheap prices to people who need them desperately, to actually help people, they will put profit before people.
African HIV+AIDS treatments are the most expensive in the world costing 5,000 compared to the
US 15,000$ and Canada’s 9,000 but we have to remember these re people who make less then on average 2$ a day so it would take them about 12 years to save up for treatment while in the West it would be a maybe a Quarter of our income, yet it never changes even after in some European countries it is below 500 dollars its still superpriced in Africa, there are many cases of this,
Kenya in 2004 tried to import fluconazole, used to treat cryptococcla meningitis a disease associated with HIV+AIDS from Thailand. The cost of the treatment would have dropped from 3000 to 104 Pfizer the patent holder, blocked the imports,
Dilflucan, a drug of Pfizer used on a AIDS related disease, Oral Thrush which frequently leads to a painful death of dehydration because of the inability to swallow, At the cost of 12 dollars per pill many cant afford them, though other generic drug companies produce a copy that costs 17 cents per pill, cannot be imported because Pfizer denies them the right, Thus people die, because of Pfizer unflinching grasp, on being the only one who can sell the drug in Africa.
So who is responsible for murder surely not the world government who side with the pharmaceuticals and turn a blind eye to there actions and the deaths they cause.
So who has committed murder surely not the highly respectable Pharmaceuticals who will make another 5 trillion next year and for many years to come while they produce another drug. All the while allowing thousands to die as they hide behind, a corporate shield.
No I guess we don’t really consider it murder, only regrettable deaths and from these deaths we derive a benefit that we can only afford so easily, because their lives were bought so cheaply.
Dillan Kaufmann
"Evil Prevails When Good Men Fail To Act"
Deadly Giants
Curious isn’t it, how something whose existence is so connected to helping people can also be in the business of killing them.
Pharmaceutical companies are today’s corporate superpowers up there with Oil and Tech making over 5 trillion dollars annually. Companies like Merck, Pfizer, Gilead and GSX seem to have a deathgrip on our governments foreign aid programs, so when the Pharmaceutical companies can send their drugs for HIV, AIDS and TB to government-run clinics in Africa. Its supposedly from the goodness of they’re hearts, a humanitarian gift. HA! No drug company does anything for free, they do it because they get a tax break and because the drugs that they send over there are no longer appropriate for American consumption, its is below CDA and FDA standards, so it goes of to Africa, disposable drugs for disposable patients.
Killing for our Health would be a good quote for this situation, some drugs used on major diseases like AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Cholera, before they go on the market here they are tested on the masses in Africa, instead of spending years perfecting the drug they just give to people at clinics if anyone dies well back to the lab fix the errors then back in to clinic again, few more deaths, bit more lab time, so in the end we have a new product on the line, and about 5000 deaths or in other words murder.
1996 Kora a region in Kenya was having widespread problem with Cholera, Measles and Meningitis. The Pharmaceutical Company Pfizer was working on a drug-TORVAN® it had been deemed unsellable in the US because it had nasty side effects, and had never been tested on children. Pfizer posing as Doctors without Borders an international aid group. Gave doses of TORVAN®
To 9000 children...who are 35% are dead and the rest are having severe health problems.
2001 Dabouta a City in Cameroon was doling out a HIV/AIDS drug, Viread to 1000’s of people daily but the drug which was being supplied by Gilead a British Pharmaceutical Company was actually the drug Tenofovir which had been banned from sale in Britain because it caused miscarriages and Strokes, Gilead was trying to fix the drug but was denied test runs in the UK. The drug was run in Cameroon for 3 years even after the World Health Organization found out. In the end the unofficial total of deaths was 23,000 including unborn children...
1997 Doctors in Pedro Mallo Naval hospital in Morocco were paid 3,000 dollars per patient by Aventis Pharmaceuticals the company that we all know and love who produces a children’s drug Triaminic-forge documents that allowed Aventis to secretly give patients a heart drug called caprotride, when the patient thought they were getting a normal check-up. 25 of the 43 people tested died.
Seems we don’t care much about African’s if we allow people to murder them and then we have a frenzy buying there new products, while the corporations stand there with blood on their hands, we wipe them clean...by buying the product blissfully we are saying “we have no idea what went into creating this drug, but we like it, make more”...so they go off and kill another 5000 people and make another drug. We are just as much to blame as they are.
We endorse them!
And even when the pharmaceuticals are given a chance to do good, given a chance to sell drugs at cheap prices to people who need them desperately, to actually help people, they will put profit before people.
African HIV+AIDS treatments are the most expensive in the world costing 5,000 compared to the
US 15,000$ and Canada’s 9,000 but we have to remember these re people who make less then on average 2$ a day so it would take them about 12 years to save up for treatment while in the West it would be a maybe a Quarter of our income, yet it never changes even after in some European countries it is below 500 dollars its still superpriced in Africa, there are many cases of this,
Kenya in 2004 tried to import fluconazole, used to treat cryptococcla meningitis a disease associated with HIV+AIDS from Thailand. The cost of the treatment would have dropped from 3000 to 104 Pfizer the patent holder, blocked the imports,
Dilflucan, a drug of Pfizer used on a AIDS related disease, Oral Thrush which frequently leads to a painful death of dehydration because of the inability to swallow, At the cost of 12 dollars per pill many cant afford them, though other generic drug companies produce a copy that costs 17 cents per pill, cannot be imported because Pfizer denies them the right, Thus people die, because of Pfizer unflinching grasp, on being the only one who can sell the drug in Africa.
So who is responsible for murder surely not the world government who side with the pharmaceuticals and turn a blind eye to there actions and the deaths they cause.
So who has committed murder surely not the highly respectable Pharmaceuticals who will make another 5 trillion next year and for many years to come while they produce another drug. All the while allowing thousands to die as they hide behind, a corporate shield.
No I guess we don’t really consider it murder, only regrettable deaths and from these deaths we derive a benefit that we can only afford so easily, because their lives were bought so cheaply.
Dillan Kaufmann
"Evil Prevails When Good Men Fail To Act"