[ From: Jagannath Chatterjee
[ Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006
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
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/05/22/health/main555154.shtml
Bayer Sold HIV-Risky Meds
By David McHugh
The Associated Press
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.
