The Daily Background

Wired News is running a story about how after India was pressured (by the WTO)into relaxing rules and outlawing affordable generic drugs- multinational pharmaceutical corporations are now using India’s poor population for testing new drugs. According to Wired:

Given the rising cost of drug research in the United States and Europe, more and more drug companies are conducting clinical trials in developing countries where government oversight is more lax and research can be done for a fraction of the cost. According to a 2004 study by Rabo India Finance, a subsidiary of the Netherlands-based Rabo Bank, clinical trials account for more than 40 percent of drug-development costs. The study also found that performing the studies in India can bring the price down by about 60 percent.

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“Third World lives are worth much less than the European lives. That is what colonialism was all about”

You can read about the Outrage of the day here.

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