A conspiracy of corruption and cynical indifference of nearly unimaginable scale

[DFW]

MAYBE Dick Cheney and Halliburton come close. But as one who is only alive due to some of the drugs named in this article, this one is really REALLY scary, and enough to make one's blood boil with rage. The hotshot former head of this company needs to be stripped of his wealth and be forced to beg in streets of India's poorest city for the rest of his worthless life.

http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2013/05/15/ranbaxy-fraud-lipitor/?sour

"Who cares......It's just blacks dying." What kind of mentality does it take to make this kind of offhand remark?

It's a long read, but it's a story that absolutely needs to be told.

[HiPointDem]

1. 80%+ of active pharmaceutical ingredients, 40% of finished drugs, come from overseas. and

some percent of them made under sweatshop conditions.

the drugs we're paying top dollar for. and not just generics.

systematic and pervasive corruption at every step of the process, and it's global.

the fruits of neoliberalism.

ranbaxy an indian subsidiary owned by a japanese corp. protected/enabled by the us government.

Indeed, the FDA -- charged with protecting the safety and health of Americans -- went even further. Despite the agency's finding of fraud and misconduct, it granted Ranbaxy lucrative rights to sell new generic drugs. In the most high-profile example, in November 2011 the FDA allowed the company to maintain its exclusive first dibs on making the generic version of a medicine taken by tens of millions of Americans: Lipitor. In the first six months, this privilege allowed Ranbaxy to generate $600 million in sales of generic atorvastatin, as nonbranded Lipitor is known.

Should the FDA have been surprised, then, when problems emerged just a year later? In November 2012, Ranbaxy had to recall millions of pills after tiny glass particles were discovered in some of them. Even that, it turns out, was enough for only a temporary suspension, and the FDA permitted the company to resume sales in March.

Just three decades ago, generic drug companies in the U.S. were derided as patent breakers. They had no clear way to gain FDA approval, while brand-name-drug companies had a lock on the market. The 1984 Hatch-Waxman Act changed that. It created a pathway, the Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA), which allowed a generic drug company to simultaneously challenge a patent and demonstrate to the FDA that it could make a drug.

In the late 1980s several generic-drug companies were caught fabricating data and bribing FDA officials to gain approval...

[chervilant]

2. Does anyone else

have the impression that the uber wealthy know that a massive 'die off' of the Hoi Polloi would be ideal for them?

[DFW]

3. I definitely do NOT get that impression

Cheap labor doesn't perform well when dead. This seems like a greedy bunch who were concerned with a few dozen of themselves getting rich on the backs of the rest of the world, and thinking the world would somehow never catch on that their phony pills were phony pills.

A few years ago, my younger daughter was working with the War Crimes Commission in Sierra Leone. While in Senegal, she got a life-threatening infection of some sort. She sought out a doctor in Sierra Leone for treatment. He prescribed some "antibiotics" to cure her infection. The pills did nothing, and only an emergency visit to the UN clinic got her some real antibiotics that cured her.

She definitely does not belong to the über-wealthy, but she knew enough to realize that she had been given phony pills, and that she had some alternatives to saying "oh, well," crawling into a hole somewhere and dying. The people of Sierra Leone probably got their shipments of phony pills from this firm or a similar one, and got their bill paid by CARE or some UN agency who relied on the empty promises of the firm making the pills.

[siligut]

7. The lie that can kill

Perhaps the MD made an incorrect identification of the offending microbe or the "antibiotics" were ineffective because they weren't what they were supposed to be. The MD may have not cared to be accurate, it is difficult to know. Too often an ill person might not know something is awry or is too sick to try another facility. I am so glad your daughter sought further care.

Healthcare fraud, due to the potentially catastrophic results, should receive extreme punishment as a deterrent.

[DFW]

9. I taught my children to act if they feel something is wrong.

Both are prone to infection, and since she was in one of the poorest parts of West Africa, she knew she wasn't about to get a house call. Luckily the War Criimes tribunal took care of their people, and she was granted access to the UN physician immediately. Freetown, Sierra Leone is not the sort of place I could have reached by shuttle in a couple of hours.

[LiberalLoner]

5. Yes. Hence my signature line.

[MisterP]

6. the PTB gave us the Mexico City global gag order, so no

[kag]

4. Wow. Thanks so much for posting this.

I checked the list of drugs that these asswipes make, and some of them are drugs that my family are currently taking. I think what we have are all name-brand, but I'm sure as hell going to check and make sure.

From the article, it appears to me that Ranbaxy hasn't cleaned up anything. They've just found new ways to fool regulators. And the $500 million probably won't even affect their bottom line.

Sick, twisted fucks on that executive board. You're right. They should be indicted, tried, and personally punished.

[DFW]

8. I'm on this stuff for the duration, too

It's not like I have a choice. I do not break down LDL, period. I go off statins, and I get clogged arteries and a heart attack. It's that simple. If it happens because a box of my statins weren't what they were supposed to be, the firm that sold them had better hope there is no such thing as a vengeful ghost.