FDA Scrutiny Scant In India, China as Drugs Pour Into U.S

[ChairmanAgnostic]

Un believable. What we are banned from doing retail, big pharma does wholesale.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/16/AR2007061601295.html?hpid=topnews


India and China, countries where the Food and Drug Administration rarely conducts quality-control inspections, have become major suppliers of low-cost drugs and drug ingredients to American consumers. Analysts say their products are becoming pervasive in the generic and over-the-counter marketplace.

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Companies based in India were bit players in the American drug market 10 years ago, selling just eight generic drugs here. Today, almost 350 varieties and strengths of antidepressants, heart medicines, antibiotics and other drugs purchased by American consumers are made by Indian manufacturers.
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"The low level there" of follow-up inspections, "combined with the huge amount of importing, greatly increases the potential that consumers will get products that have impurities or ineffective ingredients," he said.

FDA officials say that they are not aware of any health problems caused by drugs imported from India or China and that the American companies that import them usually do their own quality and safety testing. But the agency acknowledges that it is virtually impossible for it to know whether poor-quality or contaminated drugs from lightly regulated Asian plants have caused patients to get sicker or remain ill, especially because patients and doctors are unlikely to suspect poorly manufactured drugs as a problem.


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The drug companies can maximize profits, using foreign supplies and manufacturing, but if Grandpa Joe and Grandma Mabel try to go to Canada or Mexico to buy a cheaper version, they get arrested.

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Free Trade Rocks!

Yeah a bunch of people die, and our jobs go away - but Bill Clinton got a bunch of shekels from the Chinese, so quit yer whinin'.

:headbang:

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. are those like pet rocks of yesteryear?

grrrr.

[malaise]

3. Amazing isn't it

Time to destroy corporate power.

[rasputin1952]

4. It's all about cash flow...people be damned...this is one of the

legacies of de-regulation...yeah right, companies will police themselves for the betterment of the nation's people.

Squeeze another nickel out of each American regardless of the cost of lives or health of either the consumer or or the slave labor that make such things. All of this in the name of "profit" and some people wonder why there are revolutions, why there are calls for justice and integrity. It won't be long now, and the slave labor force will dominate corporate manufacturing, and we have helped to enable it, simply by buying the products.

American companies that import items are killing us, and we can't even track half of the stuff back to the source. Globalization is the death knell for the Western Hemisphere, all for another corporate dollar. Since wages have been stagnant, many Americans can't afford to shop at places other than Wal-Mart, no wonder their generic drug prices dropped like a stone, they get poison for damn near free.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

5. the antithesis of what Henry Ford did.

he shortened the workday, increased pay, fine tuned the assembly process, and made everyone happier.

Now, corpserations are anti-labor, not concerned with the consumer, so long as we keep buying, and are short-sightedly destroying the goose that laid the eggs.

[rasputin1952]

7. Yep...and one of the reasons Ford/GM/Chrysler run into so

many problems is that they refuse to look to the future. Some of our best engineers are in the auto industry, yet they are hamstrung by idiots that can't see beyond their own tenures as "Chiefs of Industry". Great surges forward have almost always come about from mavericks, not well seated corporations and people w/o any vision except that of how ell they can line their own pockets.

I find it exceptionally difficult to believe that the American industries cannot find solutions to problems that are so obvious they practically beg for correction. We can come up w/alternatives, it just isn't "cost efficient" to their little minds. As long as they haul in huge paychecks, everything will remain the same. The fear of not making more money kills off any progress. $400 million is quite the payoff, and for a guy who drives a company like Ford to near bankruptcy because of moronic decisions, should be seen as almost criminal.

Which brings up another point of contention. These CEO's are given given stock as part of their compensation, add their shares to the shares of the the rest of management, and the average shareholder has no voice in how the company runs, each share being a "vote". They literally own the company...x(

[Lance_Boyle]

6. This article brought to you by PHRMA.

Be very, very afraid of those $.05 pills that claim to be the same thing as our $5 pills. They might just actually be the same, and that could have a negative impact on our industry growth projections...

*The above snark was brought to you by Lance Boyle; General Surgeon and satisfied daily consumer of Indian prilosec.