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.
Bradley Manning’s torment continues. Now it’s Hurricane Sandy delaying his ‘trial’.
http://www.bradleymanning.org/activism/ft-meade-oct-30th-hearing-postponed-due-to-hurricane
Unfortunately, the attitude shown by William is held by many who work in African countries. I have found that those that hold these attitudes are people who have taken on posts that they are incapable of adequately filling and fall back on it as an excuse for their own shortcomings. There are a lot of others who agree with them, although not as openly as William, and they feel secure in their group therapy session at the bar as they blame their staff for all their problems.
When I was being interviewed for my job, I asked about the standard of the people I would be responsible for and was given feedback that the interviewer had garnered, obviously from the Williams of this world, along the lines of, “You show them a job in the morning and then you show them it again after lunch”.
What I found was a wonderful group of individuals, some of whom were far more intellegent than me, some of whom had had no education, but all wanting to learn new skills and knowledge. I have led UK crews on some major projects in my time, which all contained a mix of different individuals, but I would not say that they were any better than my African crew.
Today, things have moved on and we are all doing other things but I take great pleasure in the fact that some of them now have higher positions that I have. It makes no difference where people come from, they just need some help to get started.
Peppermint
You have to join all the dots.
The easiest way to steal the resources under the land is to kill the people living on the land. e.g. Sudan and Somalia.
Craig is writing tongue in cheek, but in my opinion this distribution of ineffective medicines is very much intentional and very much genocide.
China may have a mission to exploit Africa economically, but not in the cynical way that the West UKFRANCEUSIS has traditionally done.
Using China and India false drug manufacturers to mask their own genocide smacks of using European and Muslim slave traders to mask colonisation by the big players. The presence of ‘white’ missionaries not just in Africa, but every Muslim country on earth including Iraq, is one dot. Death by fake drugs another dot. Israel’s bid to take over government security operations in central Africa another dot. The presence of Al CIAda in Libya etc etc etc, another dot.
William does not respect Africa because they are unable to join the dots and take control of their own destinies. Is that not because of the subversive nature of Western colonialism?
When you look in the acid bath and find gall-stones, join up the gallstones. Behind those dots of gallstones is the humanity that has been eradicated by subterfuge, along with their beliefs, traditions, lands, rights and cultures.
For many countries, producing counterfeit drugs is a means of accumalating foreign currency.
When a country is under sanctions or has limited exports fake drudgs provide a form of wealth transfer.
Wether run by state institutions or on the criminal black market the need for money is a cause of the problem.
We know the privately owned federal reserve bank has the ability to print and the dollar is the world currency;
Solving the control of money would help negate these issues of desperariin in creatin wealth.
lwtc247, cannot you have a more human name or are you a robot? As always, you are off the mark and and a constant nuisance to everyone here with your stupid pretensions of incredulity. If we take your statements at a face value, it is obvious that you have no idea of what it is like to be poor in a poor country. If you do not understand that someone earning 100 USD, sometimes less, a month cannot afford an antiviral treatment costing in excess of 10000 USD per annum, then find a home teacher catering for backward boys and learn some elementary mathematics.
Braving the ice-sheets and probably fleeing from predators some of us left Africa an aeon ago.
Then we returned with our flying death-machines guarding our probes for natural resources – Now we can easily kill the predators… our spears are remotely controlled!
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/26/268836/us-base-in-djibouti-hub-of-secret-war/
‘Amre asks, “what does ‘Sub Sahara’ mean”. I have often asked myself the same question as it always appears in documents and articles written by people from the West.
Does it mean the equatorial/tropical belt or does it continue all the way to the Cape?’
The answer is right in front of your nose. Since the banishment of the N word from polite conversation you can no longer (as Geography textbooks did half a century ago) refer to ‘N*gr* Africa’.’Sub-Saharan’ is the acceptable alternative.
Lord Patten, chair of the BBC Trust, is a director of the European Advisory Board of Bridgepoint along with Alan Milburn, Sir Stuart Rose, Henry W K Chow,
Sir James Crosby, Dr Hubertus Erlen and Christian Streiff, an interesting collection of names!
Their portfolio includes LGC Forensics. ‘LGC is Europe’s largest private provider of forensic services and regulated scientific reference materials. It has 28 laboratories and centres across Europe, as well as sites in India, China and the US.’
LGC Forensics dealt with the deaths of Dr Kelly, Gareth Williams and the remains found at Haut de la Garenne – some coincidence?
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/forensic-scientist-who-investigated-death-241932
{http://www.jersey.police.uk/news/Pages/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsItemId=186}
{http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/9240639/Gareth-Williams-timeline-how-the-mystery-of-the-spy-in-the-bag-unfolded.html}
Background
a) LGC entered into a consultancy agreement with The Chertoff Group, of which the chairman of the company Mr Love is a principal.
The accounts and annual report for LGC 2011.
Chertoff – evil track record with PNAC, Dept of Homeland Security etc. The control of ‘forensic’ output is very important for those elements and states that kill, willy nilly, like the UK.
See Mr Love, ex Qineti, DERA etc. His biography –
{http://chertoffgroup.com/bios/graham-love.php}
Jay
Just being picky, but ‘counterfeit’ would be fine if they worked.
What a refreshing amusement on Saturday to read contributions from comentators like William. According to his logic, we may steal a goat from a neighbour if we feel that he is not milking it properly. This is not a novel idea, The “civilized people” of this world have been practicing it for centuries. But I suspect that our Willie underestimates Africans who are less degenerate than Europeans (I would prefer not to mention Americans) and it will be Africans who will most likely outlive us, the civilized bunch, in a long run. From an evolutionary point of view, simple societies, used to subsistance living, have a greater chance to survive any collapse of the industrialized word. It is more likely that in the coming days of an energy supply collapse our Willie, while trapped in a lift, will suffocate in his own farts than an African dying from starvation will provide a light lunch for a crocodile.
@karel. I misread one word in your post. Sincere apologies.
Thank so very attention-grabbing blog. I need what you mean fully explain chiknees Hind problem drugs take medicine no. I agree Gunaho bad smell lift die better. Next time make insyalla.
It is true that fake drugs are widely produced in China. They are also available in its domestic market.
“The control of ‘forensic’ output is very important for those elements and states that kill, willy nilly, like the UK.”
No coincidence Mary – Chertoff group advisor Joel Brenner was/is tasked with weakening public encryption and I believe Gareth Williams was seconded to work on the maths.
Brenner and an Israeli group developed the industrial stuxnet worm. However the group were admonished for sloppy work. Its creators lacked the quality control necessary when designing a specifically aimed attack to prevent random scatter around the globe.
Brenner has been privileged with a number of Microsoft Windows zero day exploits or back-doors that penetrate computer operating systems to reveal browser history and email clients.
DNA sequencing software is another favorite of the group. A system to remotely tag a DNA profile is of interest.
Sub Sahara Africans are not cross-bred Neanderthals. Unlike “us” who most definitely are.
Anon, Thank god for the Neatherthals. We would have been probably much worse savages without them.
“And before anyone criticizes me for comparing Africans to animals… You think the exact same thing yourself.”
No, William, I don’t.
And I’ve just written a long comment telling you why, and what I think of you, but I’ve deleted it.
O/T
Good old Vincent!
“TV3 broadcaster Vincent Browne insists he is not anti-Semitic after branding Israel a “cancer” in foreign affairs.
“But Israel’s deputy ambassador to Ireland said she never believed the day would come when an Irish TV presenter would make “racist, anti-Semitic remarks” …
Continues
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/i-am-not-antisemitic-claims-browne-3276074.html
Refreshing Karel – I do like your metaphors. 🙂
Dreoilin,
The religious and political connotation of ‘antisemitic’ has now been wrung out like a sponge since the 19c in Germany where it originated.
Semitic refers to a set of languages, not people or ethnic groups.
The most widely spoken of these today are Arabic, Hebrew, Amharic and Tigrinya, both spoken in Ethiopia and Aramaic, a version of which was spoken in ancient Israel and from which both Hebrew and Arabic scripts are derived.
The semantics have been mixed up and like a can of worms now obfuscates the dire and chronic situation in the Middle East, notable Palestine. Being anti-Israel or anti-Zionist is not antisemitic.
As you say “Good old Vincent!”
The odious Max Clifford apprears on cue,profiting from the misery of victims.
Our Max reckons that in the halcyon hedonism of the 60s and 70s nobody even knew the word paedophile.
So that makes everything all right then Max,yes?
Vulgar greedy piece of slime.
She said we (activists for Palestinian human rights) have problems with our sexual identity. What a laugh.
http://www.thejc.com/news/world-news/68791/israeli-envoy-activists-have-sexual-identity-problems
She is the wife of the Israeli ambassador to Ireland. That is called keeping it in the family.
{http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/64395/why-mr-ambassador-youre-spoiling-me%E2%80%A6}
What can be done about fake drugs?
Make sure there are plenty of real ones that work. If the factories that are making the real ones are at 110%, Build another one. If something has got to give, think of something that less improtant.
Greed and money.
Where`s “not for profit.”
Sorry Guano.
“Some of you may be aware that police invaded the home of a campaigner for Disabled People Against Cuts, living in Cardiff, just before midnight yesterday (October 26).
Apparently she had been accused of “Criminal acts against the Department for Work and Pensions” – being that she has been highlighting the deaths of sick and disabled people following reassessment by Atos and the DWP for Employment and Support Allowance.
No charges were brought against the lady concerned and it is generally considered that this was an act of intimidation.
Since then, I have been informed of three other incidents”
http://mikesivier.wordpress.com/2012/10/27/police-move-on-campaigners-for-criminal-acts-against-dwp/
“She said we (activists for Palestinian human rights) have problems with our sexual identity.”
Priceless, Mary. 🙂
Africa has been selling those tainted meds to China for decades. They have cycling back in and out of cheap pharmacies in America for decades too.
“For the sake of clarity let’s call the bank RBHS. No such bank exists, I’m sure you’ll agree.”
http://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2012/10/deposit-insurance-who-is-it-for-really/
‘Sub Sahara Africans are not cross-bred Neanderthals. Unlike “us” who most definitely are.’
‘We’ are not the only modern humans who have that distinction. Several Australasian peoples would appear to be ‘cross-bred’ with the newly discovered Denisovans-
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/news/2012/august/denisovan-dna-suggests-a-dark-complexion-and-interbreeding113697.html
Marc, thanks for the undeserved compliment. It is unbelievable what some people write nowdays. I hope that they get at least paid for their impudence.
I think William expresses a widely held opinion, not that many would confess to it. If actions (or lack of them) are any indicator then his attitude is the majority view. It just looks awful when you write it down in so few words.