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Giant American Pharmaceutical corporation X-vil has a whole range of drugs. But by bringing in the drugs through a range of developing countries X-vil has been selling drugs which are completely untested.
When he found out about X-vil's heart drug Michael Owens decided to abandon plans for a transplant and take the drug instead, but 3 months later he died. Of 300 similar patients 80 have also died, but the company sites 5 people who have made a complete recovery.
Beth Jones is also angry, she has been taking X-vils slimming drug Slimfast at a cost of $20/week for the last 6 months. She in fact gained 6Kg and now she is seething to find Slimfast has no active ingredients at all, as in fact it's only sugar pills. Again the company claims that people can lose weight with the pills and that 13% of patients have done so. This doesn't reassure Jones who is more than $500 out of pocket.
It gets worse : X-vil set up a network of franchised clinics to administer it's Zylon treatment which it claims controls a range of cancers and stress related problems. Kath Ferguson is dead now. 3 months ago she abandoned the chemotherapy she was taking and switched to Zylon treatment. An X-vil spokesman said "no treatment is 100% effective and it highly likely she would have died even on the chemotherapy", he went on to claim that 2% of cancer patients on Zylon treatment have made a complete recovery.
Dr Brian Ferguson of the BMJ, said "this really is a crisis. Each year across the world close on $1 billion is spent on X-vil products, yet X-vil categorically refuses to submit it's products to testing. If patients instead spent their money on licenced drugs, not only would they be healthier, but a significant part of the money would go into research for future drugs.
We tracked down X-vil finance officer Kit James to his yacht in the Caribbean. Reporter : " I put it to you Mr James, that you are using a legal loophole to get untested drugs into the New Zealand markets."
James: "listen mate, what we do is 100% legal. There is no danger associated with any X-vil products, as all of the chemical compounds in X-vil products are made up of chemical you have at home in your own fridge. "
Reporter : "Well isn't that a point Mr James most of X-vil products are only sugar tablets"
James: "If the customers believe in the product they buy it. That's the beauty of the free markets."
Reporter : "How much does X-vil spend on research ?"
James: "ha ! millions .. gotta go there's a cold glass of champagne waiting for me "
Outrageous.
Maybe our prejudices are outrageous. It is easy to be angry at some large evil capitalist American corporation , but we feel a warm sympathetic feeling for the hippy woman down the road with her brighly painted shop. In this story substitute the word X-vil for the billion dollar a year Complementry and Alternative Medicine Industry.
"Either it is true that a medicine works or it isn't.
It cannot be false in the ordinary sense but true in some 'alternative' sense."
Prof. Richard Dawkins,
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