The country of India has become a very important place for pharmaceutical companies to test out their new drugs. This is mainly because of India's many English-speaking doctors and the high number of ailing patients in the country today. Also, many of these patients are not used to drugs, these treatments being the first that they have every had. Along with the patients not asking questions, this allows for the security of knowing that treatment will mix with other drugs.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. If patients give their consent (and many do because of poverty and the dire need for a cure), then that's fine. Although, these big companies are still playing on another countries weaknesses. Even thought the patients have a choice, they don't have much of one. They are in such poor conditions, that it seems the only way out is to be tested on.
However, some companies have been known to illegally conduct clinical trials on patients, without their consent. In 2004, two pharmaceutical companies based in India illegally tested their drug that was suppose to treat hear attacks, on patients, causing the deaths of eight people.
As Srirupa Prasad, assistant professor of medical history and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, states, "Third world lives are worth much less than the European lives. That is what colonialism was all about."
http://www.aworldconnected.org/news/archives/037028.php
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,69595-0.html?tw=wn_story_page_prev2
Thanks for this post. I love to learn new stuff.
The Constant Gardener was a good movie. It's scary to think that they would do such a thing to people