the drug was released 3 years after the discovery of the aids virus, they werent allowed to sell it in america for exactly that reason... and they went and sold it elsewhere.
i would say that is EXTREMELY unethical, not just a bad judgement call.
I don't have further knowledge of the case than the links I provided, and neither do you. Did you bother to look at the statement Bayer made, their story (the new treatment was not approved and was questioned in many countries that still urgently needed blood), while could be false does sounds every bit as plausible as the yapping in the clip? And it's like the minute AIDS-HIV connection was discovered that the whole world embraced upon it (I think the oft cited Joseph Mercola still denies it). Even if clear AVOIDABLE mistakes would have been done, it does not neccessarily mean it was done because of greed but maybe just because of human errors. Large companies foster lots of people so plenty of room for errors.
Companies/people get criticised constantly over desicision of the past, usually with complete misunderstading of the original situation. They may even have to pay money due unpredictable unfortunate incidents, let alone plain human errors, because the public needs to have someone responsible to keep their simplistic world views intact.
You seem to assume guilt when intepreting evidence so naturally you draw the consclusion of them being guilty of all the charges put forward (not that I don't say it's possible, but really I don't know and neither do you).
whens the last time u saw a supplement company knowingly infect hundreds of people with aids? or knowingly hide or destroy information on harmful side effects? or release drugs knowing there was a good chance they would kill a bunch of people?
i dont know how or why you think alt med companies spend more than pharma companies, thats just rediculous. and dont get me started on pharma drugs, and how backwards the whole idea of treating symptoms and ignoring the disease & its root causes is. pharma companies are interested in ONE thing: money. end of story... if they werent they would be educating you on how to prevent and repair disease, not feeding you pills to cover symptoms... dont get me wrong, pharma drugs have their places... those places are just few and far between.
I made my comments on the deliberate AIDS infections above. Re:hiding and destroying evidence of harmful side-effects is pretty strong claim, don't know how much you have backing, but I am sure even that happens sometimes. More plausible claim I have heard that drug researchers rarely hide or destroy evidence, put rather draw somewhat optimistic conclusions of the data. This happens in EVERY field of research, altough possibly not as much in medical research (due to higher stakes as opposed to personal glory). The negative effect of that is reduced as there has to be multiple trials providing the needed evidence for a drug-approval. And letting deadly drugs to the public, well, yet again I don't know if you have actual evidence of such behavior.
My claim that alternative treatment expenditure (36-47 billion dollars in 1997 in the US and growing, that includes everything) is larger than spending to pharmaceuticals (around 250 billion dollars) was admittedly wrong, still the share is quite large for huge profits as alternative treament companies hardly participate in research, unlike pharmaceutical companies whose largest expenditure is research. The spending on alternative treatment is staggering given the lack of actual evidence of efficacy or safety or sometimes even abundance of evidence of non-efficacy or non-safety.
http://www.ncbi.nlm....st_uids=9820257The fact is that hardly any supplement/herb has gone through near the testing that virtually any drug-approved pharmeceutical has. Not only that, pharmaceutical drugs are under constant follow-up scrunity due to legal regulations (that requires pharmaceutical companies follow-up on reported side-effects), and because treating physicians are aware of their usage (unlike with supplements). This enables to catch questionable drugs like Vioxx even after they have been approved. Most trials showing effectiveness or safety of supplements are crappy in methology, small in size and short in duration (lets not even go to completely questionable treatments like homeopathy) and there is no systems to follow-up on their usage so real catastrophes can be raging for years possibly decades without no one ever realizing, let alone the waste of money.
More often than when comparing drugs to supplements/herbs you trade the hard data on actual effectiveness and safety to wishful extrapolations of insufficient data. Go to any supplement company website (even AOR which I consider the few somewhat trustworthy supplement companies), and witness DOZENs of products being marketed to do most amazing things from very little data, most often tweaking the little existing to the most optimistic interpretation you can possibly draw. Frequently it does not stay at optimistic interpretation but goes to plain misrepresentation or even lying. Consequences range from mere money loss to death.
It is true some orthomolecules might be promising paths for drug development but do not go there because of patent laws etc. But what lose in promising research paths, you make up in sheer amount of evidence that companies have to provide to get their products to the market.
The claim that pharmaceutical drugs "treat only symptoms" is completely unsubstantiated. Sure the companies (nor do supplement companies) don't necessarily emphasize preventative measures say proper nutrition or exercise but that is really not their job, there are other instances doing that. But I can assure you, whether preventing or treating diseases, drug approved "big pharma" substances fare quite well on safety/efficacy compared to even most promising supplements/herbs out there on ANY given condition.
ever since the lifemirage thing you have had such a hard-on for the supplement sections... i assure you no one appriciates it
Too bad for me, but someone needs to say it.
I see some of extremely researched and effective drugs like statins or aspirin being trashed here everyday while providing nil evidence (most likely because lack of it), while at the same breath heralding some little researched therapies/supplements/herbs with mixed or poor or incomplete results or even large theoretically implausibilities. I am sorry but life-extension is going to be achieved through sticking to rigorous scientific agenda, not through WISHFUL THINKING.