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Rwanda makes its own morphine while U.S. awash with opioids:
It was something, the silence. Nothing but the puff of her breath and the scuff of her slip-on shoes as Madeleine Mukantagara walked through the fields to her first patient of the day. Piercing cries once echoed down the hill to the road below. What she carried in her bag had calmed them.
For 15 years, her patient Vestine Uwizeyimana had been in unrelenting pain as disease wore away at her spine. She could no longer walk and could barely turn over in bed. Her life narrowed to a small, dark room with a dirt-floor in rural Rwanda, prayer beads hanging on the wall by her side.
A year ago, relief came in the form of liquid morphine, locally produced as part of Rwanda's groundbreaking effort to address one of the world's great inequities: As thousands die from addiction in rich countries awash with prescription painkillers, millions of people writhe in agony in the poorest nations with no access to opioids at all.
Companies don't make money selling cheap, generic morphine to the poor and dying, and most people in sub-Saharan Africa cannot afford the expensive formulations like oxycodone and fentanyl, prescribed so abundantly in richer nations that thousands became addicted to them.
Rwanda's answer: plastic bottles of morphine, produced for pennies and delivered to homes across the country by community health workers like Mukantagara. It is proof, advocates say, that the opioid trade doesn't have to be guided by how much money can be made.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 30 2019, @11:15PM (18 children)
We used to let doctors make their professional decision to prescribe pain relievers to patients. Now we hold them with one leg in jail for considering to prescribe pain relievers.
This story is praising Rwanda for doing what we are trying to eviscerate the Sacklers and many doctors for.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Gaaark on Monday December 30 2019, @11:57PM
EXACTLY!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 31 2019, @12:44AM
We used to let priests have unlimited access to minors... your argument is bullshit. Try again.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by barbara hudson on Tuesday December 31 2019, @01:14AM (2 children)
Same thing with phoney studies that supported Prozac for kids. [madinamerica.com]
At least half of all approved psychiatric medications don't work; many do real harm.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 31 2019, @01:19AM (1 child)
But think of the jobs created!
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Tuesday December 31 2019, @03:50PM
Think about the jobs lost because the dead can't pay taxes, don't buy stuff, don't halo create jobs with their spending.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Tuesday December 31 2019, @01:21AM (10 children)
I'd be happier if those professional decisions were based on the doctor's own judgement and not on bribes and lies from Big Pharma.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @02:40AM (7 children)
There's a solution to that. Stop allowing the government more and more control over medicine. They use it to further entrench and protect the big players every single time. If they had to fight for their profits like everyone else, you'd see much lower prices and efficiency. What you wouldn't see would be huge drug companies with all the money in the world to bribe physicians.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday December 31 2019, @06:36PM (1 child)
So then what you would see are the big pharma companies still lying to the physicians about the indicated uses and dependence and tolerance factors, but nobody to stop them. And we've already seen from Epipens and Shrkeli that gouging (to the tune of "all the market will bear") would be the norm. You would still see huge drug companies with all the money in the world to influence the process.
Now, if you're suggesting that drug patents should go away... OK. Then describe how meaningful research will be done, because right now that is fueled entirely by the profit process.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @06:47PM
No, what you would see would be no big pharma companies. They exist solely because the government protects their position through patent law and other legislation. It certainly wasn't their shining customer satisfaction that got them the market shares and capitalization they currently enjoy. It wouldn't happen immediately of course but it would without a doubt happen.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday December 31 2019, @08:09PM (4 children)
My country banned the pharmaceutical companies from advertising and wining and dining doctors. It helped a bunch but we live next door to a capitalist country and the pharmaceutical companies have used their capital to buy their government.
What would be good is more free markets, but that is at odds with capitalism as it creates competition and decreases profits.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @10:39PM (3 children)
You have a very screwed up idea of what capitalism is. Capitalism, unlike socialism, has been practiced in the real world even at large scale in nearly pure form.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday December 31 2019, @11:39PM (2 children)
Capitalism is using capital to acquire more capital with capital usually meaning money.
My Credit Union and the Co-op I visit are both examples of well working socialism, thanks to a fairly free market.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday January 02 2020, @12:38PM (1 child)
No, that is in fact not remotely what capitalism is. Grab a dictionary.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday January 02 2020, @05:11PM
From dictionary.com. Don't see how that negates private people or corporations buying laws to enhance their exchange of wealth.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday December 31 2019, @03:20AM (1 child)
That's not such a great thing either. 50+ years ago, doctors used to advise patients to take up smoking cigarettes.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @04:34AM
They still do in way under a pack a day levels, given the right circumstances.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday December 31 2019, @03:31AM
No, the Sacklers and many doctors are eviscerated for their predatory pricing and pushing.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday December 31 2019, @03:31AM
We're trying to eviscerate the Sacklers for willfully misleading doctors about the addiction risk of the opioids they sold. Meanwhile, the Sacklers certainly weren't trying to sell their opioids cheaply.