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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBig Pharma Is Cut Out By India's Plan To Bring Medicine To Masses
Ambitious $5bn push deals blow to global firms with focus on generic alternatives above branded drugs
The Independent
Nikhil Kumar
Friday 06 July 2012
India is planning a multibillion-dollar push to bring free medicines to the hundreds of millions of its citizens who, despite the country's economic revival, still languish without access to the very basics of health care.
The $5bn initiative, which is slated to be rolled out by the end of this year, will offer 348 essential drugs to patients across the country. In a blow to the West's big pharmaceutical firms, the planned scheme will largely cut out branded drugs, opting instead for cheaper generic alternatives.
News of the plan comes as the Congress-led administration in Delhi attempts to shore up public support after a raft of corruption scandals and crushing electoral losses in state polls. A recent report confirming a slowdown in economic growth has only served to sharpen criticism of the government.
Now, Delhi is plotting a multi-billion dollar health-care drive, using its network of government-funded hospitals and clinics to deliver free drugs across a country where, despite the much-vaunted boom of recent years, more than two million young children die every year from preventable infections, according to UNICEF.
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- Quite a lot of the world's pharmaceutical drugs are manufactured in India by BIG PHARMA. And ever since they showed up there, they have steadily been polluting India's waters. So much so that India's waters have the highest amount of pharmaceutical pollution in the world. So prepare yourselves, because I'm sure we will be hearing a lot of screaming and caterwauling from BIG PHARMA about how unfair this is to the ''Job Creators.''
Talk about a bunch of sick mofos......
limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)Response to limpyhobbler (Reply #1)
SunSeeker This message was self-deleted by its author.
Fearless
(18,421 posts)Even if it's a political move to shore up power.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)Between this and the 5 million Brazilian farmers kicking Monsanto in the family jewels, I'd say the tide she be 'a-turnin.....
SunSeeker
(51,771 posts)DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)...the waters flowing through many rural communities in India (where many pill factories are located) would very likely be the source of water used to swallow those birth control pills, and the water probably already has quite of bit of contraceptives in it. And if not, then there's always the Prozac, the anti-biotics and a variety of other endocrine-disruptor drugs.
- Of course I'm sure BIG PHARMA would say: ''Hey look, whatever illness they might have.... well there's probably the medicine for it in the river. So it's all good.....''
SunSeeker
(51,771 posts)People in the U.S. have been flushing their medicine (either directly or as human waste) down the toilet, which ends up in our oceans and groundwater.
But I would assume the concentrations at these India dump sites are many times higher than what is found in our water.
Also pesticides, which are ubiquitous in the the U.S., tend to mimic estrogen. This could explain why there is a greater incidence of breast cancer in the U.S. than in India.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)...the strange part of it all is that no one seems to see the relationship between all those 90,000+ chemicals that have been added to the environment and introduced into our bodies, and the uptick in health problems (particularly immune disorders), diseases, super-germs, etc.
- And of course by the only measure we count here in USA-America: [font size=4]PROFITS[/font]
PufPuf23
(8,843 posts)Society is being systematically mis-lead and lied to (by omission at best) about known and likely risks of of persistent man made artificial (not found in nature) chemicals and their by-products of manufacture and degradation.
etc.
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)What does it matter if we pollute their water in the process!
Long live globalism!!!
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)...to everyone in the whole wide world!!!
- Even if it kills them......
Kennah
(14,349 posts)Skittles
(153,249 posts)Last edited Sat Jul 7, 2012, 05:20 AM - Edit history (1)
big pharma fucks up everything they touch