Donation or Dumping?

Developing countries have long been free-market victims of an illegal disposal of waste products as ‘dumping’ (literally, non-economic definition, regardless prices) grounds. In this case, drugs.

I just watched this film called The Constant Gardener and the content of the film just reminded me of International Health Partners (IHP), a British organisation recently established (after tsunami) to send millions of surplus UK drug stocks to countries in need. The organisation claimed to liaise with a number of charities, governments, international organisations, and drug manufacturers and act as the go-between, getting the drugs to fulfil each specific request from different areas around the world.

In poorer nations, I’d say simple drugs like painkillers (e.g. paracetamol, ibuprofen, aspirin) or Sudafed that help ward off sore throats or the flu can be very hard to come by. Therefore a desire from pharmaceutical companies to disseminate their overstocks could be translated to giving aid to meet the growing demands for medicines and medical supplies in developing countries. However, many have expressed scepticism claiming that such charity is merely a way of ‘dumping drugs.’

This is where the film sorta fits in (at least, in my reckoning). Basically, the film (directed by Fernando Meirelles - City of God, and based on a novel by John Le Carre - British spy novelist) was about a multinational drug company that uses helpless Africans as guinea pigs to test a tuberculosis remedy with unfortunately fatal side effects (disregard the love story bits, which were the main stream I guess). The drug company people in the film abused those common excuses to answer "why Africa?" The reasons were 1) its large population, 2) its high death rate from fatal diseases like AIDS, and 3) "no one cares about Africa" (one of the most-often-heard phrases in cheesy Hollywood blockbuster films – Sahara, The Interpreter, etc.)!!

Back to the IHP organisation, they stressed that together with the WHO, their plans would easily avoid past donation mistakes. They said that pharmaceutical firms produced many more drugs than needed so this was a way of ensuring that the medicines were put to good use, rather than being destroyed. And definitely, no signs of clinical trials conspiracy or anything along that line. Ok, not a bad elucidation, really.

Well, let’s hope (the most I could do) that the donated drugs are neither expired, nor those unwanted bunches with plenty of side effects. It seems like, for Western pharmaceutical companies, it is alright to opt for a much cheaper and less government regulation (i.e. no ethical restrictions) way to test those not-fully-developed drugs on ignorant impoverished third world populations. Believe it or not; the U.S. FDA can still exploit these foreign drug trials in approving medications for its domestic market, even if the clinical trials (e.g. giving placebo to a sick patient as a nonspecific variable in a research) violated U.S. ethical standards for drug testing!! How unethical!!

p.s. the film was based in Kenya, mostly in this biggest slum in Nairobi. Thus, I was reminiscing throughout since I just visited the location not long ago (see pic below).


...And apparently, there are more than a million people live there, the death rate is super high yet still under-reported, and of course “no one cares about these people,” even those townies living across the main street from them.

Yeah, just fit the criteria, hey?