Medical Testing in Foreign Countries

We keep talking about the idea that pharmaceutical companies are testing their drugs in Africa instead of in the United States now. They’re no longer using American test subjects; they’re using foreign test subjects. Toying around with this idea, I found an article about pharmaceutical drug testing in India. This article deals specifically with the simplicity to test drugs in India. Because much of the population of India is illiterate and uneducated, the nation produces great test subjects. However, the nation is also a host to many successful clinicians. With the low cost of labor in India, pharmaceutical companies are able to outsource their testing to the nation, allowing the testing to occur without minimal intervention. The clinicians conduct the medical trials for the pharmaceutical companies on the general uneducated people of India.

“‘Individuals who participate in Indian clinical trials usually won't be educated. Offering $100 may be undue enticement; they may not even realize that they are being coerced.’” Sound familiar? This scenario reminds me of free diapers and candy. This article is quite similar to the one we recently discussed in class, but it expands on how foreign nations are involved in this pharmaceutical limbo.

One of the main reasons India was discovered as a nation with such great potential was because Indian pharmaceutical companies continually reverse-manufactured drugs made in other countries. Under pressure from the WTO to stop doing this and creating generic versions of the patented drugs, the nation began to try to develop its own medications; after all, those developed by Western nations weren’t financially feasible for the Indian population. Large pharmaceutical companies caught wind and decided to try testing in India.

As I read this article, I was reminded of a commercial I used to see on prime time television where a lady talks about what she does with her job for Merck. She explains that she tries to develop drugs and that it often takes decades to do so. She continues explaining that the reason she keeps going to her job is because of the days she sees drugs working miracles in real people. The commercial was quite emotional and sentimental. After remembering the commercial, I am reminded of the way drug companies often test their drugs on subjects without any consent. I juxtapose the ideas that drugs are made to save lives, but are often made by taking innocent lives. Is this ethical? Are pharmaceutical companies truly just in it for the profit or are they honestly trying to save lives? Is it ethical if a drug test kills ten subjects but saves 100 lives? How will we know that the drug will save lives?

Until I have more insight on the issue, I agree that drug companies live by this motto: “‘Third World lives are worth much less than the European lives. That is what colonialism was all about.’”

http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/news/2005/12/69595?currentPage=all