BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 27 Oct 01 - 10:49 AM

Sorry not to have answered one or two points sooner. First, my info came from a report on a BBC domestic (UK) radio channel, which had been sparked by a statement by Médecins sans Frontières. That's where the $5-a-tablet figure came from,. I don't question the explanation given above for that figure - the argument still holds that there is one standard for America and another for Africa.

For info about the impact of patent protection on public health in poor countries, the effect of the TRIPS agreements etc, there are many sources.

Here's a link to a relevant part of Ralph Nadar's Cosumer Project for Technology site.

The Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines is another good starting point, with useful links. It's on the MSF site, but I think it's a multi-agency campaign.

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: Kim C
Date: 26 Oct 01 - 03:36 PM

While we're talking about double standards, maybe we should address how the Taliban makes money off heroin.

Population control? Keep your pants zipped up. That don't cost anything.

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Oct 01 - 01:17 PM

Sam Kinneson had a sort of point, but he had the wrong solution..they CAN'T all move (ask Pakistan), but they can control population, with help....Land has a certain "carrying capacity"...you can only have so many people live in some places and be sure they can eat without help.

The blame in the food, drug, health care issue lies in modern society progressing faster in some areas than others and in lack of sane population control measures EVERYWHERE....there is simply **NO** way to feed and provide modern medicines equally to everyone in the world who needs them...hell, I can't even get/afford all *I* need, and I live in the US!

Could we do better? Sure..like all modern problems, there is room for improvement!...and there are MANY Americans working to 'make things better'...it is just REAL hard to make every ideal "Official Govt. Policy".

and, yes...in the final analysis, "It DOES depend on whose ox is being gored!"

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 26 Oct 01 - 09:01 AM

The United States has one of the most screwed up healthcare systems in the world. On one hand, we spend the most heavily of any country on healthcare -- $4,187 per capita -- but rank 37th in the world. Why? Because ACCESS to healthcare is so low. We have a wonderful medical system -- if you can afford it. Fine for the rich, but there are plenty of working people, like my husband and I, who simply cannot afford health insurance -- or getting sick, for that matter.

According to statistics I just read, France has the best healthcare system in the world (and spends $2,369 per capita) and Sierra Leone has the worst (spending $11 per capita).

My figures are from the World Health Organization, which assessed 191 countries looking at such factors as overall health of the populations and comparing access to healthcare for rich and poor.

Bat Goddess

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: paddymac
Date: 26 Oct 01 - 05:57 AM

Nothing like a little reality therapy to muck up a love fest. David is dead right. (sorry,I couldn't pass it up)

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: DougR
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 10:37 PM

Ok, CarolC, you got me! I exhibited for all the world to see, my ignorance of the makeup of the current Royal family.

So how about this: "She's probably not riding HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh anymore (but then she could be)? :>)

Don't sell the horses!

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: ddw
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 10:19 PM

Yeah, Spaw —— seems I always wind up the bastard when these discussions start. I don't even have to oppose anything — just point out that throwing money at sad situations may just make them sadder. Whistling in the wind....

cheers,

david

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: GUEST,PeteBoom (still at work and not having fun)
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 09:52 PM

Face it folks, America and Americans all are right selfish ba$tard$. Period. Every Yank there is should just go and die and leave the world to the folks who know better than any Yank alive or dead or to be born, because Yanks are all selfish ba$tard$.

There. Happy?

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: Art Thieme
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 09:51 PM

I'm still a Socialist. Go figure.

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 09:40 PM

You all are a real bunch of tough love compassionate conservatives. You make Attila the Hun and Gengis Khan look like choirboys.

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: catspaw49
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 09:36 PM

Hey ddw......Your post also reminds me of the Sam Kinnison monologue about hunger.......Don't send in food. Send in U-Hauls. Take them to where the food is. "Hey!! You all live in a desert! You got no food because nothing grows here.....It's fucking sand....Nothing grows here...Move to where you can grow some fucking food!!! AAAAAARRRRRGGGHHHHHH"

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: Amos
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 09:26 PM

Art:

That is certainly how my little part of the mule feels! Don't ask which!!

A.

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: Art Thieme
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 09:22 PM

A double standard can sometimes be generated by someone, simply, reaching an age that allows he or she to see that there are numerous shades of gray in issues. We are not happy about this situation. We would rather not have been attacked ! I, for one, am proud of many of my seeming double standards. They indicate a certain flexibility---a commendable ability to change one's mind when the facts demand a response other than the one adopted 30 years earlier for a different war. This time the mule has been hit firmly up side the head with a two-by-four. It ought to be clear that the animal is justified in deciding to kick.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 08:52 PM

Riding the King would be a bit difficult for her to do seeing as how he died when she was but a lass. That's why she's the Queen now.

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: DougR
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 08:41 PM

Murray! How could you? The Queen sell her horses and give the money to the down and out in Africa? What in the world do you think she would ride if she didn't have her horses? I doubt she rides the King anymore (but then she might). :>)

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: ddw
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 08:28 PM

Aid for the sick in Africa sounds like a great idea, but there are considerations beyond wiping out diseases.

When there was a famine in Ethiopia (when wasn't there a famine in Ethiopia, but this one was worse than normal), the U.S. sent in lots of grain to feed the hungry. It worked (at least a bit) in the short-term, but cause other problems later.

1. Many of the people it "saved" had had their physical and mental growth so stunted by humger, they were incapable of being productive members of society.

2. Many of those who would have died in childhood lived to have children, who they couldn't support.

3. The interruption of the (admittedly terrible) reduction of the population assured the already arid, over-used land had no time to recover so it could produce crops and support animal herds.

4. Then the aid was cut off and the people were in worse shape than before.

Same thing has happened over and over — with food, medical supplies, military support and all kinds of things to alleviate suffering — and bleeding hearts never seem to learn. They argue for intervention, then when we do, they say we shouldn't have tampered with the recipients' "culture and way of life."

Make up your goddamned minds!

I think somebody needs to sort out the difference between preserving existance and preserving life and start a little hard-nosed triage. Help those with a good chance of survial after the help and let the walking dead stop walking.

cheers,

david

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 07:29 PM

art brooks data is correct.

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 06:57 PM

Yes and how about the Queen, why don't they make her sell her horses and paintings and castles and give the money to the poor people in Africa so that they can buy drugs and condoms and stuff .................

Murray

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: Amos
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 06:46 PM

Oh, kat, darlin', you're showing us your pink side!! :>) Hit's jes' 'dorable.

Take two different contexts, and populate them with two different batches of people, and then run the scenarios at two different points in tim,e and then get all spun up because the two scenarios reveal different standards of thought? C'mon, now. Ethics is situational, and businessmen by trade are opportunistic. The same poor people in Africa if they were to band together and pool their funds and come up with an order for a million tabs of Cipro could probably get the same price from these capitalist pigs, if they managed the negotiation right.

Sorry to be jaded but there are more real targets for lamentation and protest out there. I grant it seems hypocritical for the "government" (which is probably two totally different sets of individuals in this example) to move for price floors with the WHO and move for mass discounts when it is their own asses in the line of fire, but this is surely a natural outgrowth of the circumstances.

A.

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 06:32 PM

Capitalism of the vilest sort.

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 06:26 PM

Jim, I think the comparison to the debacle over the price of AIDS drugs in Africa holds.

If you take into account the economy of scale of the AIDS crisis in Africa, its hard to see how the drug companies could have EVER have attempted to justify what they did in Africa. The number of confirmed cases alone, even if not one more human being ever contracted the disease in Africa, would have guaranteed a huge windfall for the drug companies, even at the cheapest cut-rate prices.

So how do you account for that sort of despicable behavior?

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 06:14 PM

Oh, Clinton! Not ALL of them were slave owners! Sheesh!

Still waiting for some cites, also.

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: SharonA
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 06:06 PM

Double standards? Of course not. There are LOTS more than just two.

Subject: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 04:49 PM

Of course there's double standards... right from the get go...

America was founded by slave owners who wanted to be FREE!!

It's all been down hill from there...

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 04:44 PM

Keep in mind, though, that there is such a thing as economy of scale. No doubt Bayer can now produce Cipro much more cheaply than they used to, simply because they can make it in much larger batches, they have a guaranteed market for it, they don't have to advertise, and there is probably no risk of overproducing.

Reducing the price now does NOT prove that the price was unreasonably high in the first place.

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: Pseudolus
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 04:40 PM

The news story I saw last night said that the Gov't is getting Cipro for around $0.95 instead of around $1.78. that's not the point of the priginal post I guess but it is a significant difference.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: Wesley S
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 04:37 PM

So Fionn - what's your solution to the problem ?

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: artbrooks
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 04:35 PM

The deal is for 100 million tablets at $.95 each, rather than the price of $1.77 that Bayer was originally going to charge. Canada is paying $1.30/each for a smaller amount. $5.00 is the retail cost, and nobody pays retail if they buy 100,000,000 at a time, rich or not. Please provide the cite for your data.

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 04:31 PM

Fionn, I have read a few things on this, too, more along the lines of birth control methods and AIDs treatment/prevention. I am very interested. Do you have any articles, sites, etc, to recommned? Also, do you have any suggestions as to what anyone can do to try to change the way things go this way? Do you know of any actions we could join to help stop this? Apart from the usual contact our Congrespserson, etc, which, these days, feels a bit like pissing in the wind, IMO.

Thanks,

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: MMario
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 04:30 PM

yes - we have double standards - so d*mn many of them. but show me a society that doesn't?

Subject: RE: BS: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 04:26 PM

Hit the wrong key there. That life expectancy figure should have been "less than 40 years" - 49 is a distant dream. Sorry about the botched attempt at switching off the italics.

Subject: Double standards in USA? Surely not...
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 04:21 PM

The USA has just done a deal to get its Cipro from Bayer for one dollar a tablet instead of the usual five. I guess that's the kind of deal you can strike if you're rich.

Meanwhile, within the same 24 hours, the USA administration has been working to ensure that the WTO next month protects the pharmaceutical giants from pressure to reduce their prices for drugs that could transform the quality of life for millions in sub-saharan Africa.

At present, according to UN figures, about 37,000 people die in Africa every day from diseases such as sleeping sickness, malaria, TB and of course AIDS. This translates into life expectancy in some African states of less than 49 years.

As things stand, impoverished nations simply cannot afford the drugs that could eradicate most of this misery.