I’m blogging about an article that was published in 2003, but I think that’s okay because although few people would be shocked to know its facts, I doubt the incriminating and shameful details are known to most.
In 1984, Bayer Pharmeceuticals’ Cutter Biologicals division knew very well that the pool from which its raw materials for blood products used by hemophiliacs was tainted with HIV. One survey of patients treated with the product in the United States prior to February 1984 determined that 74% were infected with the virus. Yet they continued to sell this product, which they knew to be dangerous, since in all liklihood it would infect its users with a deadly disease for which there was (and still is) no cure, in their overseas markets, primarily in Asia.
Why did they do this? Was it because they believed that the harm was outweighed by the benefit? Was it because they had no ready substitute and believed the transmission rate to be lower than it actually was? Would I be writing this if either of those were the answer?
The fact is that they did it to protect their profits. They sold it because it was expensive to produce, and since they were not allowed to sell it in the US anymore, they needed some outlet for the stockpiles. Well, that’s pretty bad, if you ask me. What’s worse is that they continued making it, even though they had since developed a process that would kill the virus in order to make new batches of the drug safe, because they had fixed price contracts in the developing world and they knew they could make it the old way cheaper.
The “precise human toll” is impossible to caluculate, but the article states that at least 100 hemophiliacs in Taiwan and Hong Kong were infected. Bah, 100. That’s not so bad. Consider the classic example of exponential increase that is often given in health and sex ed classes. Jim slept with Phoung, Phoung slept with Wei, Ken, and Li, each of them slept with three more people, and so on. Voila, epidemic.
I love this statement from the article, the company’s respnse: ”Decisions made nearly two decades ago were based on the best scientific information of the time and were consistent with the regulations in place.” What a cop out! (It’s also a lie, since the timeline demonstrates that they were ordered by the FDA to stop selling it overseas and did not). Why do I place such value on personal responsibility? Where the hell did I get such a crazy idea?! I like the passive voice…”Decisions made” Did they make themselves, or do you mean “Decisions WE made?” Also, sir, is less than two decades ancient history or something? There are crimes for which the statute of limitations is more than that whic don’t involve stoking the flames of a global pandemic responsible for millions of deaths, orphans, and individual years of human anguish! What’s twenty years to the Taiwanese mother whose 2 year old child was infected and has since likely died? Do you think twenty years seems like forever ago to her?
Even in the United States, when Bayer and three other companies paid out $600 million dollars to hemophiliacs infected with the disease (although they infected thousands, many of whom had died by the time 15 years of legal wrangling was completed), they did so with no admission of any wrongdoing. In some of those cases, I’d agree that no wrong was done. Prior to the realization that the product was harmful, I don’t hold them culpable for infection. At least to my knowledge, no one saw HIV coming, and early on they did not know it was bloodborne. But once they knew the product transmitted a disease, in fact, once they had a reasonable idea that it did, they had a legal, ethical, and moral responsibility to at least inform their consumers of the risk they were taking. Unfortunately for hemophiliacs during that time, there were limited options for treatment and it may have meant choosing a slow death over a quick one.
Here is the timeline from the end of the article. I know that makes this a really long post, but it is still shorter than the original article.
JANUARY 1983 — A Cutter official warns in a letter that ”there is strong evidence to suggest that AIDS is passed on to other people through . . . plasma products.”
JUNE 1983 — Cutter complains to overseas distributors about ”unsubstantiated speculations” linking AIDS to concentrate.
FEBRUARY 1984 — Cutter gets license in the United States to sell new concentrate that has been heated to kill H.I.V.
OCTOBER 1984 — C.D.C. says a study with Cutter found that heat treatment kills the AIDS virus. Prototype H.I.V. test finds 74 percent of hemophiliacs who used unheated concentrate tested positive for H.I.V.
NOVEMBER 1984 — Cutter notes excess inventory of unheated product. ”Will review international markets” to see if more unheated product can be sold.
NOVEMBER 1984 — The company tells its Hong Kong distributor ”we must use up stocks” of unheated medicine before switching to ‘’safer, better” heat-treated product.
FEBRUARY 1985 — A Cutter task force asks in a memo, ”Can we in good faith continue to ship nonheat-treated coagulation products to Japan?”
APRIL 1985 — Cutter considers trying ”to influence a delay in introduction of heattreated product” in Japan. The company later says it did not act on that suggestion.
MAY 1985 — Cutter tells its Hong Kong distributor that the unheated medicine poses no ‘’severe hazard.”
MAY 1985 — Cutter says Hong Kong doctors question whether it is selling off ”excess stocks of old AIDS-tainted” medicine.
MAY 1985 — The Food and Drug Administration realizes that companies are still selling unheated concentrate overseas. F.D.A. official wants problem ”quietly solved without alerting the Congress, the medical community and the public,” according to Cutter documents.
JULY 1985 — Cutter says it started shipping only heated product.
What do you think? Were you aware of this? If you read the article, isn’t it interesting that all this information was only a byproduct of the US lawsuits, and that no one but the NYTimes found the part about third world markets worth looking into further?
Free market, indeed.
