Mozambique advised her to try a popular painkiller called Cibalgin.
The drug didn't help. Instead, Carol started develop cold sores around her mouth. Soon, her gums were coming off on toothbrush. When her face began to swell recognition, and new, painful infections along the veins of her arms, Carol was admitted hospital. Since it was clear her life was in danger, she was flown to Johannesburg for treatment.
The infection which started in her mouth erupted all over her body, and X-rays revealed abscesses on her lungs too. Her lips fell off, the flesh completely decayed. The jawbone, now posed to view, also proved to be diseased. Fortunately, laboratory in Johannesburg was able to diagnose the bacteria responsible and managed halt Carol's disintegration.
Once on the mend, Carol mentioned to doctors that she had taken Cibalgin. There was no need to look any further for the cause Iness. The local office of Ciba-Geigy, the manufacturer of Cibalgin, at first denied any knowledge of the product — not surprisingly, since its sale is not allowed by the authorities. Amidopyrine, the active ingredient in Cibalgin, had first been shown to cause agranulatosis, Carol's complaint, 58 years before ...
The uncontrolled sale and promotion of Western-made drugs in Third World countries is causing avoidable suffering, even death, for countless people like Carol. A modest 'shopping list of essential 'generic' drugs not sold under brand name) could be used to treat diseases in the poorest countries in the world and save millions of lives. Instead, European and North American pharmaceutical companies are swamping the market with vitamin and mineral tonics, antidepressants, cough and cold remedies and 'body building' steroids.
Harm These products often do little good and can do a lot of harm. But they are a lucrative source of money for their manufacturers.
The international trade in pharmaceutical proacts Is overwelmngly dominated by rich industrialized nations, like the US, Germany, Britain and Switzerland. Some 50 transnational corporations UN СОШО HOSORS.
Some leading corporations pushing, without proper warnings, drugs banned in the West because of their possible serious side Iney encouraging the development of drug-resistant diseases by an overuse of antibiotics. They are promoting powerful anabolic steroids as appetite stimulants for malnourished children. And they are charging exhigher in real terms than in the West.
Aggressive aimed primarily at better-off people in the cities, inevitably influences the Besides reinforcing the belief JUUI• that Western-made medicines are the answer to all ils. sales campaigns persuade people to buy to her beyond developed to had the unusual physical of her ilAfrican drug manufacturer's alternatives are available.
unequal distribution of wealth of government controls.
sweets.
West jections.. Company doctors with samples. Doctors effects.
latives as tere are doctors.
selling irresponsibly, though governments rely their products.
DIUIOLU1 Led good drugs.
Brazil.
necessities sold COC глого: MIKE WELLS norance.
tion.
condition sold in Brazil, 106 are offered in doses of five to thirty times the maximum concentration recommended and sold in Britain by the Glaxo firm - including two which Glaxo itself sells in • Name-brand Western drugs cost an incredible amount of money in relation to wages and the cost of basic in poor communities.
Koche's Bactrim, the best-selling anti. bacterial drug in Mexico, cost 138.60 pesos in 1978 — enough to provide a basic diet for a family of four for two weeks. In Bangladesh, 100 aspirin, under the brand name Genaspirin, cost the equivalent of 2.5 per cent of a poor family's annual inThe tragedy is that many poor people are making sacrifices to buy these costly, often unnecessary drugs when the underlying cause of so many of their illnesses is , poverty and io , A widow in a village near Dacca, India, sold her cooking pots, then her small plot of land to buy tonics for her fifth child, who was suffering from diarrhea and malnutni The child's health did not improve. The basie cause of her serious Black of food; yet, ironically, without land, the whole family were put at risk.
Bangladeshi woman was discovered by a doctor crying with her dead baby in her arms, surrounded by medicine bottles. Having spent all her money on these expensive drugs, she could not understand why they had not saved the child. The baby kad severely . dehydrated diarrhea. Her death could have been avoided with a simple home made mixture of water, salt and sugar.
drug enjoy returns from their Third World sales. These are sometimes well Many companies careful to mix developed and developing country statistics when publishing their sales and profit figures.
It is also a well-documented prac tice of TNCs with Third World sub sidiaries to transfer profits out of the overpricing their The United Nations has reported that, in 1975, if subsidiaries of foreign firms in Brazil (many of them drug companies) had imported raw material at the going rate, the return on invested capital would have amounted to 65 per cent rather than the 15 per cent declared.
surprisingly, the highest prices and fattest profit margins are found where governments exercise few controls over foreign investors. The Philippines is perhaps the classic case of this. A recent study underthe UN Commission on Trade and Development revealed that the least expensive tetracycline capsule in the Philippines cost over eight Stall • cheapest available in the USA. Roche's bestprouucts Valium, were priced eight and fourteen times higher than in Britain The Third World's drug problem can never be solved in isolation. At the end of the day better health for the poor can only be promoted if governments show the political will to bring primary health care services to tr population instead of catering for the rich through costly Western-style hospitals and clinics in This article is based on two recent books:
Pills: Third Dianna Melrose (Dublishec al ford 0x2 7D2, UK), Bad The Hald, 274 Banbury Road, of Nations: A North-South Investigation.
Mike ruler (puousnea al ts.s) D Faber and Faber, , 3 Queens Square , Lor don WCIN3AU; UK The case of 'Carol is taken from The Health of Nation.