Getting paid to get sick

I was browsing through a news channel, and this disheartening title caught my eye. This may seem like a distant reality to us living in a wealthy nation. The big pharmaceutical companies in North America are outsourcing testing to India. It has become a hub for medical testing due to the cheap labour, and lack f regulations. For locals earning an average 50 cents a day, the business is lucrative, since it pays around $12 for referring to another volunteer. In the clip,

Self-confident and well-groomed with gelled hair and tight-fitting designer jeans, Nadia said he is paid about $12 for every recruit he brings to the three Indian research labs with whom he works. In a region of western Indian where the average worker earns 50 cents a day, that’s good money.

Someone’s got to do the dirty, undesirable work for us to enjoy our level of technological and medical advancement. Why not poor people in a far far away land? Right? Such are the evils that keeps the wheels of capitalism turning.

“People keep falling sick,” he said. “There are many instances where there are swellings in the limbs, loss of eyesight. Several deaths have occurred … It becomes a question of human rights — a big one at that.” Ultimately, the outsourcing of this “dirty work” passes the buck of human testing to another country. Unlike Western countries where there is an audit of each death during a clinical trial, there is none of that in India. While Western countries boast of humanitarian efforts here and there, the exploitation of workers under poverty is generating human suffering and pain. But, it’s ok, no one will know, no records will show, unless more people are brought to awareness on the issue.

Source:

http://openchannel.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/02/10561824-people-keep-falling-sick-how-poor-indians-are-recruited-for-clinical-drug-trials