> ... Our Daily Meds by Christine Petersen.
>
> I just finished the first couple of chapters and this book is awesome. ...
>
> I had heard plenty about the ridiculous marketing that goes on, ...
>
>
> This is a fucked up country. These pharma companies are making something
> like an 18% profit. ...
Not just one country. The stuff they cannot sell in the US or Europe gets marketed in the "Third World".
Back in the 70s, I followed the "hippie trail" overland to India via Iran. At both Iranian border crossings, we were given a couple of pills to take, eastbound "because there is typhus in Turkey" & westbound "because there's cholera in India".
I asked the name of the drug & wrote it down. Chloramphenicol. It is an antibiotic, so a single dose is not effective, but they were giving it to everyone who crossed the border. Nice profit for the drug company & no doubt for some official.
When I got back to Canada, I asked a doctor, tropical medicine specialist, about it. He was horrified.
Apparently the stuff is one of the most effective antibiotics known, very broad spectrum. However, it has very nasty side effects, sometimes including a fatal anemia. He said its only use in the West was against acute typhoid fever; most antibiotics are not effective against that so the risks of side effects are worth it.
-- Sandy Harris, Fuzhou, Fujian, China