more expensive name-branded goods even when cheaper, locally produced HOIR The problem is aggravated by the health care within many Third World nations themselves and by the absence Antibiotics may be sold loose on market stalls like Pharmacies statted unqualified assistants sell all kinds of strong drugs over the counter. Petty traders with no medica trainine tour villages, offering pills, potions and insalesmen woo cluding Such is the commercial pressure that in Nepal, Brazil and parts of Central America there are three times as many pharmaceutical sales represenTo counter criticism that they are Western drug doses, firms mav arque that it is un to third World governments to decide which drugs to accept. The truth is that these largely the manufacturers for information about Forty-five of the world's poorest and smallest nations depend entirely on imports of finishRecent research has thrown light on some shocking abuses of this situa• Amidopyrine, the painkiller that triggered Carol's horrifying physical disintegration, was restricted prescription usage in the US in 1938 because of its dangers. In 1963, in response to medical opinion, manufacturer withdrew it voluntarily from Britain. In 1977 Ciba-Geigy announced that it intended to remove amidopyrine from all its products by the end of that year. Three years later Ciba brands containing the ingredient were still being sold in Portugal and Third Mozambique, where Carol took her near-fatal treatment in 1979.
• Entero-vioform Mexaform ‹also made bv Ciba-Geigy) are products for the treatment of diarrhea. They contain clioquinol, which, when taken for a prolonged period in high has led some patients becoming blind crippled. Manufacturers have paid out compensation to such patients in Japan and Europe, and Entero-vioform has been effectively withdrawn from the British market. Yet it continues to be freely available in many Third World countries such as Bangladesh, and North Yemen, sold mostly in foil strips without instructions or warnings. • Orabolin anabolic steroids, made by the Dutch firm Organon, are used in Western countries mainly to treat serious blood diseases. They can produce very nasty side effects like jaundice ano liver tumours. The comnant itself advises the Orabolin is children'. Yet its sales representatives in Bangladesh have been promoting the product body builder and appetite stimulant for malnourished youngsters.
• Antibiotics are being marketed by in- Western manufacturers for trivial, unnecessary uses, an alarming rate of drug resistance.
• Non-essential drugs flood many of the countries of the world that can least afford them. For example, in the Philippines cough suppressants are on sale counting for 12 per cent of total drug expenditure there in 1980. Fewer than a dozen of these are based on codeine, the only cough suppressant included essential drug list. • Drug waste and consumer decepIndia tion go hand in hand. Vitamin B-12 is widely sold in many poor countries. It Crying The bumper disguised. country materials.
Not taken by British doctors that 'not recommended for time! warnings as a known thus encouraging mass of the 162 different brands of — ас- urban aress.
Bitter World Poor at f4. 05 h Health Organization's