When a Life Saving Industry Cheats, People Die - The Genocide Election

[donsu]

http://www.counterpunch.com/rost11062006.html


This election is about much more than Democrats or Republicans, higher or lower taxes, or the war in Iraq. It is about the survival of millions of people around the globe. And if candidates supported by the drug industry prevail, we may become participants in a silent genocide.

A few years ago I attended a closed meeting with consultants for Ernst & Young. They told the gathered drug executives that the pharma industry was in trouble. Ernst & Young had added together the sales forecasts the industry had given to Wall Street and they told us, "If you are going to meet those numbers, you need twice as many drugs as you have in your pipeline. Your stock is going to fall off a cliff during the next ten years."

Today, that prediction has come true. Drug company stocks have tumbled. The biggest drug company, Pfizer, has lost 40% of its value in the last five years.

The only temporary relief has been the Medicare prescription benefit. According to the New York Times, this program has raised profits for drug makers both by increasing the prices they receive and by encouraging beneficiaries to fill prescriptions they might otherwise have been unable to afford.

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But losing the election to Democrats isn't the only threat looming on the horizon for the drug industry. IMS Health, an industry research firm, estimates prescription drugs worth $121.5 billion will come off patent between 2006 and 2011. That's half of U.S. drug sales.

But the drug company CEO's have a plan to fix all these problems. Just like a bad student might contemplate cheating, the drug industry plans on big scale cheating.

Number one on the cheat sheet is to stop generics from coming onto the market, in the U.S and overseas. One such failed attempt recently resulted in the ouster of Peter Dolan, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.'s former CEO. This sordid affair also led to the FBI searching his office. But it wasn't the FBI the board was disturbed about when they fired Mr. Dolan. They were upset about the fact that Mr. Dolan failed to buy off the generic drug maker, and messed up so badly that the generic company was able to temporarily flood the U.S. market with the cheap generic drug he'd tried to stop.

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Pedro Chequer, the head of Brazil's national AIDS program has said: "If you prevent countries from using generic drugs, you are creating a concrete obstacle to providing access to drugs. You are promoting genocide, because you're killing people."

The trade deals are often negotiated in secret and attract little notice. But they have already been signed with poor countries overwhelmed by AIDS, among them six in Central America. And negotiations have started with several nations that also are overwhelmed by the AIDS virus, from Thailand to five southern African countries, including South Africa and Botswana.

When a life-saving industry cheats, people die. When the White House participates in these dirty deals, the result may be genocide.
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the drug barons should be brought up on charges of crimes against humanity.

the whole world should point fingers at them and not let them get away with this shit.

[donsu]

1. kicking back to 1st pg. cause this is important

nt