Of 110 containers of pharmaceuticals entering West Africa searched in a special operation coordinated by the World Customs Organisation (WCO), 84 were found to contain fake pharmaceuticals. 82 million doses of fake medicine were confiscated which included anti-malarial and anti-HIV drugs and antibiotics.
Here in sub-Saharan Africa, over two children die every minute of malaria – which in 98% of cases can be cured with US $6 worth of genuine drugs. A spokesman for the WCO on BBC World Service radio last night said that the number of deaths caused directly by counterfeit medicine in Africa every year was in the hundreds of thousands. He called it “genocide”.
I might not use that word, but it is beyond doubt true that supplying counterfeit drugs to Africa causes more deaths than narcotics, than the wars in Syria, Afghanistan and the rest of the Middle East combined, and several hundred times more deaths than terrorism.
The supply of fake life-saving drugs to the world’s poorest people is not only on a far greater scale than terrorism, it is morally just as evil, killing innocent civilian populations, particularly children, on an unimaginable scale of slaughter.
So why does this terrible evil receive virtually no mainstream media exposure? Is it because it happens to Africans, and the media coverage of Africa is so negative and relentlessly concentrated on disaster that it leads to a perception that the natural state of Africans is to die of disease?
It is worth noting that this terrible crime is being committed against Africa from outside – almost none of the fake pharmaceuticals are made in Africa. Here in Ghana I know the good people at the Food and Drugs Administration; they are well organised, well-qualified and well-equipped. But they are fighting a huge tide of fake drugs and organised crime on a massive scale.
In Ghana the fake drugs come overwhelngly from China amd India, and I suspect that is true across the BRICS. This terrible dark side – the WCO estimates that the counterfeit drugs trade yields profits of US$9 billion a year – should be borne in mind when considering the success of the BRICS and their possible counterweight to Western influence in foreign affairs.
India and China have vastly more economic resources and greater government control than the African states whose people are the victims of this evil trade. The word “genocide” used by the WCO spokesman causes you to think in this case, because this is mass killing perpetrated by Asians against Africans. The exporting states must face up to their moral obligation to take responsibility for the quality control of the manufacture of their exports, and in particular for controls at ports to ensure fake drugs are not exported.
The United Nations and the World Health Organisation should take action to ensure that the xporting state has a legal obligation effectively to stop the export of counterfeit drugs, with effective redress for victim states against the exporting state.
A bit hard on Node there, i also thought a distinction between counterfeit and fake medicine very significant.
Thank-you Dave – cheers I’ll put that on my web-site.
‘India and China have vastly more economic resources and greater government control than the African states whose people are the victims of this evil trade. ‘
True, however India & China, unlike the states of ‘the West’, are immune to feelings of post colonial guilt, as their conduct in, respectively, Kashmir & Tibet, amply demonstrates. Neither country is thus likely to assume a ‘duty of care’ in their dealings with African countries whose own governments (with the possible exception of Ghana, as Craig states) are too incompetent or corrupt to protect their own peoples from this trade.
As to the dearth of Media attention, it’s a prescription that’s written frequently.
The attacks on Coptic Christians in Egypt and subsequent murders
Aid Missions to Gaza
Crimes against children other than the beautiful, blue-eyed blonde variety.
If you’re brown, you’re down.
http://www.dailypaul.com/260403/daily-mail-obama-hit-12-billion-romney-095-billion-in-campaign-funding
Just Imagine boys and girls in the real world , what could be done with rhis amount od money.
How many trees could be planted, how many jobs could be created, what seeds could be planted and species saved.
We are not in the real world this is a make believe world where we are being chosen by the darkside for our deals with satan himself.
How can it be?
“what could be done with rhis amount od money.”
If we had publicly funded elections, this baloney would be cut a little thinner.
Currently, there’s a cap of $20 m per candidate.
2008 Campaign funds
Spent to Dateā Cash on Handā Vote Results
Barack Obama (D) $760,389,695 $15,466,043 69,456,897 (52.9%)
John McCain (R) $373,920,686 $26,377,838 59,934,814 (45.7%)
Ralph Nader (I) $4,387,250 $143,425 738,475 (0.6%)
Bob Barr (LIB) $1,405,821 $77 523,686 (0.4%)
Chuck Baldwin (CST) $244,113 $17,899 199,314 (0.2%)
Cynthia McKinney (GRE) $240,460 $0 161,603 (0.1%)
Sorry that didn’t post properly, but you can figure it out.
I think they’re spending less in Greece.
“”Filthy, dangerous, hysterical, racist, dividedāthis city is genuinely brutal and dull. There is an end of days atmosphere today in Greece.You can see it in people’s faces and in the space that surrounds them. A very deep existential sadness, much deeper than the obvious economic indignation. It is very difficult for a Greek to be optimistic,” Dimitris told us. “I hope things take a turn for the better in my country because now it sucks.”
http://www.vice.com/read/the-apocalypse-has-come-early-in-athens
50 years later….
http://consortiumnews.com/2012/10/26/presidential-elections-and-armageddon/
It’s bad enough having fake drugs, but in Greece it looks like people have to make do without any drugs at all:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/25/world/europe/greek-unemployed-cut-off-from-medical-treatment.html?_r=1
The above includes a rather terrible story about untreated breast cancer, btw, for those raving lunatics contributing here who think cancer treatment is all some sort of hoax designed to kill the patient (with the complicity of the doctor).
“If there is one country that has benefited from the huge amounts Greece spends on defence it is Germany,” said Dimitris Papadimoulis, an MP with the Coalition of the Radical Left party.
“Just under 15% of Germany’s total arms exports are made to Greece, its biggest market in Europe,” Papadimoulis said the MP, reeling off figures from a scruffy armchair in his party’s parliamentary office. “Greece has paid over ā¬2bn (Ā£1.6bn) for submarines that proved to be faulty and which it doesn’t even need.
“It owes another ā¬1bn as part of the deal. That’s three times the amount Athens was asked to make in additional pension cuts to secure its latest EU aid package.”
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), France is not far behind. Some 10% of its total arms sales go to Greece, which is a member of Nato. From 2002 to 2006, Greece was the world’s fourth biggest importer of conventional weapons. It is now the 10th.
“As a proportion of GDP, Greece spends twice as much as any other EU member on defence,” said Papadimoulis, who is also a former MEP.
“Well after the economic crisis had begun, Germany and France were trying to seal lucrative weapons deals even as they were pushing us to make deep cuts in areas like health.”
19 April 2012
German ‘hypocrisy’ over Greek military spending has critics up in arms
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/19/greece-military-spending-debt-crisis
I had read that Greece came under huge pressure to buy arms they couldn’t afford, and that Goldman Sachs was somethow in involved in that pressure, but I can’t find a link.
Greece has been thorougly f*cked over and it’s not because of its citizens “not paying taxes”.
Off-topic sos but well worth a look – thank-you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=cf6CvVDjrJk
In retail, we have good, better, best. In Africa, they have fake, generic, branded. All produced and packaged to a price point that matches the consumer’s preparedness or ability to purchase an upgraded product. Now why would it be any other way? Some might think that this fake pharmaceutical business hurts the real pharm business. I don’t think so. You can’t make a buck selling to someone who won’t pay the high prices you demand. And if you discount to Africa, all those meds will end up on the internet, sold to Westerners. Do Indian and Chinese politicians care? They do. Their friends run these operations and give them kickbacks. They really do care.
“Illegal medications seized in 16 African countries”
(AFP) ā 1 day ago
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hy1ujjnSsXypqZxayHLcnVihkfWA?docId=CNG.e948f75582c629a7eb61956930e63223.581
“PARIS ā An unprecedented crackdown in 16 African countries netted 82 million doses of illegal or counterfeit drugs, including antibiotics, contraceptives and malaria treatments, the World Customs Organisation (WCO) said on Thursday.
……
“Africa is now being used as a rubbish tip, and this directly affects consumer health and safety,” Zimmermann said.
“We are dealing with structured organisations that specialise in international fraud, which exploit globalisation in operations that span continents and countries, using different forms of transport.”
Two further operations would be staged in Africa over the next six months in order to maintain momentum on the drug fakers, said the WCO’s secretary general, Kunio Mikuriya.”
“Fake Medicine Common in Many Sub-Saharan African Countries”
‘A median of 20% across 17 countries surveyed say they or household members
have been victims’
-ttp://www.gallup.com/poll/149942/fake-medicine-common-sub-saharan-african-countries.aspx
The story is out there, if you Google it, but as Craig says, it’s not exactly getting ‘top billing’ in the MSM.
Wahh, I’m gone into moderation. And I thought I had disguised the second link …
Dreoilin – do this – anysite.com/blah/blah/blah
just leave out the http://www – not needed – but more than one invites the black hole of moderation.
oops – my bad – I should have said on subsequent links else it won’t show as a link.
Mark, I had left out the initial “h” on the second link, thinking that would work. But I’ll leave out the whole http://www in future, or use curly brackets, tks!
“..wars in Syria, Afghanistan and the rest of the Middle East combined, and several hundred times more deaths than terrorism.”
Is this Guardian article kosher folks – or is this coalition government shenanigans?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/26/iran-military-action-downing-street
This Dreoilin? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17108367
I seem to think that one of the pocket pols put in by the IMF/EU bank etc was ex Goldman Sachs.
Thanks Mary, but no, it wasn’t about Goldman Sachs helping to hide their debt, it was a story about pressure put on them regarding arms sales. I wish I could find it.
Other links here about Goldman (well named) Sachs and the Greek debt.
http://dissidentvoice.org/search/?cx=004699754223191941067%3Adjkep-0myaa&cof=FORID%3A11&ie=UTF-8&q=goldman+sachs+greece+debt&sa=Search
~~~~
I know Craig was writing about fake drugs. A distant relative by marriage is a paediatrician and has just been working in Ugandan hospitals and clinics. She was struck by the large quantities of drugs and medicine + equipment unused in store rooms, some marked USAid. The staff had no knowledge nor had been given instructions on the use of the drugs and other items. Thus they were gathering dust and going out of date.
Mark I expect you knew that St Tony of Baghdad was into the mosquito net business via his Faith Foundation and his Africs initiative. Tony is such a good human.
{http://www.tonyblairfaithfoundation.org/news/2012/04/12}
Mark
I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire article was written to frame this paragraph:
š
My dear friend Silvio
I was very sorry to hear that our enemies have succeeded in their persecution of you and that you have been fined, prevented from ever standing for President again and worst of all, have been sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. I am truly appalled but as the news channels are saying here, it is most unlikely that you will ever go to jail. I hope that their information is correct and that your appeal will see that you are free of these wicked charges.
Meanwhile, Cherie and I send our fondest wishes and let me know if there is any way I can help. We looked forward to seeing you again at your beautiful Villa Certosa but see that it is now on the market. If you can ever get over here, you are most welcome at our place in the country.
If your legal people need any assistance, I will put a word in Tessa Jowell’s ear and I am sure that David Mills will be only too willing to help using the experience when he went through the same mill.
Yours aye
Tony
http://www.news.com.au/realestate/selling/silvio-berlusconis-pad-villa-certosa-goes-on-sale-for-572m/story-fndbawks-1226482957154
My comment that went into moderation was on topic (Africa) but this one relates to what Mark posted:
Israeli Lobbyist Calls For False Flag To Start Iran War
https://wemustknow.wordpress.com/2012/10/25/israeli-lobbyist-calls-for-false-flag-to-start-iran-war/
Dave, thanks for reminding me of Iraq. Although Craig does not want to call the sale of fake drug a genocide, it has nevertheless some genocidal traits, even if genocide is not necessarily the perpetratorsā intention. We have all become rather tolerant and well-adapted to genocide, which has been with us throughout the history. Whole nations have vanished without a trace like the Carribs or the Tasmanians, most of the indigenous American nations and god knows who else. Individuals like Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state, when asked about the death of about half a million Iraqi children as a consequence of sanctions, answered that it was worth it. Such defenders of freedom find genocide fine and useful method to deal with real or imaginary enemies. Any producer of fake drugs, if accosted, would most likely be less brutal and tell us about selling an illusion to those who would die anyway, providing jobs to hundreds of landless peasants and the fabulous trickle down of the proceeds to those most in need.
What can be done about fake drugs? I suspect nothing as any potential war on fake drugs will be as successful and as deadly as the war on drugs declared by Nixon. Perhaps something could be done about the genocide of children Gaza perpetrated by the zionist entity, that calls itself the āJewish Stateā.
Amazing. This author talks about “crime being committed against Africa from outside” not against human beings. Also, there is no country mentioned, as if Africans are all one type of person, black, and they don’t have sovereign countries, national identities, rights and are less distinct as individuals than Europeans are. Mr Murray would never talk about the British as “Europeans” or Canadians as “North Americans”; he would always refer to the exact country where something bad is happening, as he does in the Assange case.
Why do you do this Craig? Are Nigerians, Togolaise, Senegalese, Angolans and all the other culturally distinct citizens of these sovereign countries not worthy of your carful attention in your writing? Or are they just a gaggle of ignorant blacks, who dont have rights or citizenship, and exist only as mute receptacles for your pity?
Your attitude to these people and their distinct cultures and countries is fueled by exactly the same motivation that causes companies to import deadly fake medicine to these countries; dark skinned people dont count, not morally, numerically politically or any other way. That is the only way we can explain this inexplicable grouping of an entire continent of disparate people into a single word, “Africa”.
Craig once mentioned the dumping of toxic waste in African seas by different international companies. Responsibility for this current topic of useless medicines could originate from anywhere in the globe. They are not accountable to any controlling body and the financial beneficiaries could just as likely be sitting at a laptop in leafy Surrey as India or China.
The greatest crime against Africa ever committed has been the ongoing eradication of Islam. Billions are spent every year peddling the fake and worthless Christian creeds of the UK and US / IS. In this case the location source of the criminals is clear. I suspect that the business channels for fake drugs are the same, even if the bottles are labelled India or China.
In my [moderated] comment I posted two links:
āIllegal medications seized in 16 African countriesā
(AFP) ā 1 day ago
{http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hy1ujjnSsXypqZxayHLcnVihkfWA?docId=CNG.e948f75582c629a7eb61956930e63223.581}
which mentions that:
“Two further operations would be staged in Africa over the next six months in order to maintain momentum on the drug fakers, said the WCOās secretary general, Kunio Mikuriya.ā
and
āFake Medicine Common in Many Sub-Saharan African Countriesā
{http://www.gallup.com/poll/149942/fake-medicine-common-sub-saharan-african-countries.aspx}
which gives the results of polling to find out how many people have been affected by them.
and I said that
The story is out there, if you Google it, but as Craig says, itās not exactly getting ātop billingā in the MSM.
@Ngozi Kwaku
You say
“Your attitude to these people and their distinct cultures and countries is fueled by exactly the same motivation that causes companies to import deadly fake medicine to these countries; dark skinned people dont count, not morally, numerically politically or any other way.”
I think you’re being unfair to Craig. If he thought that “dark skinned people dont count”, why would he post about the subject at all? Are you aware of his involvement in Ghana?