Patent Medicines, Branded Goods and Quackery

Photo: Cough medicine that is more likely to do harm than good.

Most people in developing countries, especially the poorest, have to spend a lot of money on self medication. Insurance is far too expensive, as are hospital and clinic visits. So private pharmacies, shops and supermarkets supply a range of things that you will see people buying and using regularly.

However, I can't help thinking that people are being fleeced because many of these products seem to have ingredients that would be of little benefit to sick people. The main ingredient of the cough medicine above is creosote (which has known negative effects on health). The smell of the stuff is enough to make you gag and my friend using it certainly gagged every time she had to take some.

People are also being fleeced because they are being sold branded versions of things like paracetamol and aspirin, which are very expensive compared to the generic versions. The cost of some of these branded medicines and the patent medicines, such as Panadol, Gripe Water and various syrups and tonics are often the equivalent of a good meal or two, something that might be of far greater help to the symptoms.

I guess developing countries are an easy target for this kind of exploitation, given low levels of health care, little or no access to health education and constant bombardment with advertisements, advertorials and sneaky appearances of various products in soaps and dramas.



Photo: This van certainly says a lot! Sphere: Related Content

Feathering Nests and Breaking Promises

Photo: World Aids Week, 2008 in Shibale, Western Kenya. Because of the artificially high prices or antiretroviral drugs, the promise will not be kept for most people.

The Information Clearing House has a good article about pharmaceutical companies and how they maximise their profits at the expense of tax payers and the poor and sick. These companies are fond of pointing out that they need to charge lots of money so they can keep on researching and producing more drugs. The fact is that most of the research is done in publicly funded institutions and the pharmaceutical companies only put 14% of their ill gotten gains into research. They put far more into lobbying, marketing and various other legal but dirty tricks.

It is possible for developing countries to get a licence to produce patented drugs but they are being encouraged not to do so because this would be inconvenient for the drug companies. They could even produce the drugs or import drugs produced, while ignoring the patent, because it is in the interest of human rights. But again, they are encouraged not to do so and there are some cosy agreements in some countries not to do anything that would threaten Big Pharma's profits.

Much of the money spent on drugs in developing countries comes from aid money so developing country governments don't really care whether the money is being spent on small amounts of patented drugs or large amounts of generic drugs. It's a terrible waste of money and many people are denied treatment that should be perfectly affordable, but there are too many vested interests involved for the system to change much. What is required is for developing countries to stand up to Big Pharma and to produce or import generic versions of the drugs they need. Brazil is one of the few countries that has been in a position to do this.

Unfortunately, the drug industry is wealthy enough to ensure that most countries don't follow Brazil's example. Some countries, such as Kenya, have even passed ambiguous legislation that doesn't distinguish between generics and fakes, so that the production or importation of generics is unlikely to be possible there. It is feared that other countries will follow their example. This is very convenient for the drug companies. I wonder what prompted Kenya to do something that seems to be so much against their interest? Sphere: Related Content

De Facto Subsidies for Big Pharma

It sounds like this article, about a HIV prevention trial of gel and tablets, is actually about pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP).

PrEP is the use of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to prevent HIV infection. At present, ARVs are used to treat people who are at an advanced stage of HIV. They are also used to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV.

One of the reasons that HIV programmes, especially treatment programmes, are so expensive is because the price of ARVs are kept artificially high by drug companies and this phenomenon is supported by donor funding, which is a de facto subsidy to the pharmaceutical industry.

If PrEP gets the go ahead, HIV prevention could also become dominated by capital intensive pharmaceutical technologies. There are an estimated 33 million people living with HIV at the moment. The number of people who could be targeted with PrEP would run in to the hundreds of millions.

It seems odd that the article never mentions PrEP but perhaps it's just an oversight. Sphere: Related Content