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Today's topics: * Dr Rebello: Lopsided health care policy goes against human rights. - 1 messages, 1 author http://groups.google.com/group/BM_discussion/browse_thread/thread/ee2d60383a14e7e8 * Medical Corruption: Bayer sold HIV tainted meds to Asian countries. - 1 messages, 1 author http://groups.google.com/group/BM_discussion/browse_thread/thread/ef39f19a3559e332 ============================================================================== TOPIC: Dr Rebello: Lopsided health care policy goes against human rights. http://groups.google.com/group/BM_discussion/browse_thread/thread/ee2d60383a14e7e8 ============================================================================== == 1 of 1 == Date: Sat, Jun 10 2006 8:13 am From: Jagannath Chatterjee To The Editor Down to Earth Delhi 110 062 June 05, 2005 Lopsided health care policy and half-baked health movement. Dear Madam, Apropos your latest issue (May 31, 2005) :- the article "wisdom roots" was a very interesting piece on traditional healers in Rajasthan. One rarely gets to read such reports these days. As regards the interview with David Frawley, Director of American Institute of Vedic Studies, Down to Earth may consider going deeper into the status, problems and attitudes towards indigenous/alternative systems of medicine in India. While the world over (Europe and US in particular), people are resorting to Ayurveda and Indigenous medicines, we Indians are failing to take into account Indigenous medicine for raising the standard of health of the people. India still gives step-motherly treatment to traditional/indigenous/alternative medicine even though it recognises Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha. One may question as to how many Indigenous/Alternative medicine training institutes, research centres and hospitals have been established by the government as compared to Allopathic system? Has anybody heard of a municipal government hospital exclusively for indigenous medicine or a college to train barefoot doctors? Shouldnt we learn from China, which has always kept alive and proudly promoted its effective Acupuncture treatment? But no, we have created a multi-billion health industry and promoted hospitals indulging in health tourism but do not release grants for upgrading Primary Health Centres in villages and cant pay our rural health workers a living wage. We have doctors of Homeopathy, Ayurveda coming to treat Parliamentarians (see MP Parliament directory "services" section) at government expense, but fail to provide these treatments through government hospitals to the general population. World over, the lobby of drug industry is so strong that Indigenous systems of medicine is labeled quackery and even governments lobbied to deny these research funds. It is the multi-billion drug industry that decides our health. Not for nothing the finance ministry of India decides the drug policy and not the health ministry. As an activist one knows that governments dance to the tune of lobbies and mafias (be it pharmaceutical, arms, food etc) but it becomes really disturbing when some NGOs and movements such as Jan Swasthya Abhiyan, Right to Cheap Medicine campaign, or centres for human rights holding public tribunals on health lay emphasis on delivery of Allopathy medicines to rural people and forget cheaper, safer Indigenous medicine. Right to health interpreted as right to life (Article 21, COI) in CERC vs Union of India by Supreme Court remains mere rhetoric if it doesnt include the right to choose ones system of health care. David Frawleys statement that Ayurveda has no lobby is true for all indigenous/alternative systems of medicine more in India than in the US. Hence it is very important that NGOs, Abhiyans and citizens focus their attention/campaign on indigenous system of medicine which are far cheaper, safer, effective and through which we can achieve health for all. Lobbying and compelling governments to provide allopathic medicines in the name of right to health is a pseudo and half-baked movement. Yours frankly Ronald L. Rebello Human Rights Activist 28 Sunrise (552), Samta Nagar Kandivali (East), Mumbai 400 101 "Our ideal is not the spirituality that withdraws from life but the conquest of life by the power of the spirit." - Aurobindo. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ============================================================================== TOPIC: Medical Corruption: Bayer sold HIV tainted meds to Asian countries. http://groups.google.com/group/BM_discussion/browse_thread/thread/ef39f19a3559e332 ============================================================================== == 1 of 1 == Date: Sun, Jun 11 2006 2:14 am From: Jagannath Chatterjee Dear Members, I have been warning against the use of serum based vaccines and medicines. These products are almost always contaminated and carry the risk of spreading dangerous diseases. Medical insiders know that uncontaminated serum is a contradiction in terms. Serum can only be "relatively pure", whatever that means. The risk of genetic contamination is 100% as we do not screen the serum for defective genes. Now we have a very large drug MNC showing no regrets about passing on HIV to patients in Asia through a serum based medication. Regards, Jagannath. June 10, 2006 8:31pm http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/05/22/health/main555154.shtml Bayer Sold HIV-Risky Meds FRANKFURT, Germany, May 22, 2003 (AP) Quote "Decisions made nearly two decades ago were based on the best scientific information of the time and were consistent with the regulations in place. They cannot be judged on the information available today." Bayer AG (AP) Chemical and drug maker Bayer AG said Thursday it acted "responsibly, ethically and humanely" during the 1980s in selling a blood-clotting product that stopped potentially fatal bleeding in hemophiliacs but was linked to the risk of HIV infection. The company's statement was in response to a New York Times report that it sold millions of dollars worth of an older version of the medication in Latin America and Asia while marketing a newer, safer product in the United States and Europe. Bayer division Cutter Biological continued selling old stocks of the medicine for more than a year after it introduced a version in February 1984 that was heat-treated to kill HIV, according to documents obtained by the Times. The medicine, called Factor VIII concentrate, can stop or prevent potentially fatal bleeding in people with hemophilia, a genetic condition that prevents blood from clotting normally. Early in the AIDS epidemic, the medicine was made using plasma from 10,000 or more donors. There was not yet a screening test for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, so even a small number of HIV-positive donors could taint a large pool of plasma recipients. As a result, thousands of hemophiliacs became infected with HIV. Bayer and three other companies that made the concentrate have paid about $600 million to settle more than 15 years of lawsuits accusing them of making a dangerous product, the newspaper said. The Times said at least 100 hemophiliacs in Hong Kong and Taiwan alone contracted AIDS after using the older product, and that many have since died. Li Wei-chun said her son, who died in 1996 at the age of 23, was among the victims. "They did not care about the lives in Asia," she said. "It was racial discrimination." Cutter also sold the older medicine in Argentina, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, and Singapore after February 1984, according to the documents. The newspaper said Cutter shipped more than 100,000 vials of unheated concentrate, worth more than $4 million, after it began selling the safer product. The sales continued partly because of Cutter's desire to deplete stocks of the older medicine, and partly because of fixed-price contracts, for which the company believed the older product would be cheaper to make, the newspaper said. In March 1983, the federal Centers for Disease Control warned that blood products appeared responsible for AIDS among hemophiliacs. Three months later, Cutter sent a letter to distributors in nearly two dozen nations saying that AIDS was "the center of irrational response in many countries." In late 1984, as Hong Kong hemophiliacs began testing positive for HIV, some doctors wondered whether Cutter was sending "AIDS-tainted" medicine into less-developed nations. But the company assured its distributor that the unheated product posed "no severe hazard" and was the "same fine product we have supplied for years." In May 1985, Dr. Harry M. Meyer Jr., the Food and Drug Administration's blood-products official, called the companies to a meeting, believing they had broken an agreement to stop selling the older medicine, the Times said. But Meyer decided to handle the matter quietly instead of notifying the public, the newspaper said. By David McHugh ©MMIII, The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. "Our ideal is not the spirituality that withdraws from life but the conquest of life by the power of the spirit." - Aurobindo. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ============================================================================== You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BM_discussion" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] or visit http://groups.google.com/group/BM_discussion To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change the way you get mail from this group, visit: http://groups.google.com/group/BM_discussion/subscribe To report abuse, send email explaining the problem to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ============================================================================== Google Groups: http://groups.google.com
