Just How Dangerous Are India’s Generic Drugs? Very! | Hacker News Reader

Just How Dangerous Are India’s Generic Drugs? Very!

washingtonpost.com

11 pointsnikolay8 comments

No discussion of the benefits of cheap generic drugs made available to millions/billions of people. Just citations of deaths in the single and double digits, which is bad but seven digits less than the other.

No I'm not in favor of killing children, lets head off the pedantic responses. I'm suggesting that more expensive oversight will definitely raise prices, reduce distribution, leave potentially millions without beneficial medicines.

My old minister said once, we can have all the morals we can afford. To sit in American armchairs and cry foul when third world efforts prove less safe than our own is, well, a first-world privilege.

The article definitely lacks some very important statistics. I don’t have enough knowledge to comment really, but my uneducated opinion is that in pharmaceuticals somewhat more regulation is better, also important during export/imports. Im in UK for context

Generics from India are not the only option. For example, the German BERLIN-CHEMIE, with over 150 of history behind it, offers comparable pricing and is one of the most popular brand for generics in Europe. For example, I have not seen a single drug made in India in Europe and I think I know why - they won't pass regulation probably or cannot offer lower prices and higher quality. Yet, most American ingest carcinogens from India, which fuels the conspiracy that this is desired - sick people getting sicker is highly profitable!

For a first-world rich person, yes. The Indian pharma companies are 50-100X larger, and serve a hundred billion more people. No contest.

Again, from a western armchair it's easy to denigrate Indian efforts.

Correction: hundred million.

Europe's population is hundreds of millions, too. Pills are not cars.

Estimated from market cap.

https://archive.ph/HZtYi

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