this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2025
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Global News

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Nearly 20% of cancer drugs defective in 4 African nations (www.dw.com)
submitted 1 day ago by BrikoX@lemmy.zip to c/globalnews@lemmy.zip
9 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Across Africa, cancer medications have been found to be substandard or counterfeit. That means people are being given medicine that may not work, or that could even cause them harm.

Archived version: https://archive.is/newest/https://www.dw.com/en/nearly-20-of-cancer-drugs-defective-in-4-african-nations/a-73062221

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

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[–] hellinkilla@hexbear.net 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I know it's just a third party photo on a summary article but the photographer "Barbara Debout/AFP/Getty Images" is seriously fucked in the head. The idea that anyone would ever break up a bunch of blister packs of random medications and put them in a colander like some sort of chronic disease salad is insane. For context, we see the dark skin and bold printed clothing. Is there any explanation for this which isn't wildly racist?

There's a perfectly non-racist image included in the actual paper:

edit: shit man barbara debout gets around

[–] SnortsGarlicPowder@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

She is/was a Central African Republic correspondant. A lot of her photos are going to have Africans in them.

I dug a bit: CAFRICA-HEALTH-POVERTY Stephen Hyppolite Liosso Pivara Bembe, a former medical student who was never able to finish his studies, sifts though medicines in the small street pharmacy he owns in Bangui, on 21 February 2022. Informal pharmacies are vital for the poorest population of this Central African country, the second least developed in the world according to the UN and in civil war for 10 years. But there is a flip side to the coin: proliferation of poor quality or fake drugs, resistance to antibiotics, illegal practice of medicine. (Photo by Barbara DEBOUT / AFP) (Photo by BARBARA DEBOUT/AFP via Getty Images)

She has quite a few of Stephen doing tasks in his Pharmacy.

[–] hellinkilla@hexbear.net 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I commend your web search skills!

With that info we can post a better photo taken within moments of the above:

Which shows medications being stored in a normal way in boxes which are neatly stacked and organized on shelves.

The med salad colander thing still completely inexplicable. It doesn't play any role in the workflow according to the photos I saw. It is a chaotic and dangerous way of storing medication. I hypothesize it is staged for the benefit of the photographer, likely with some art direction from her.

[–] SnortsGarlicPowder@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think it was supposed to portray second hand/dubious origin medications being sorted through rather than a pick n mix.

Undoubtedly there was art direction but I expect that from pretty much every photo ever taken.

Either way I think it would be on the articles author for the picture choice rather than the photographer. I don't think Getty lets you deny who gets to use your photos.

[–] hellinkilla@hexbear.net 1 points 23 hours ago

When Oxford was about to liberate its covid vaccine recipe to enable local production in the global south, bill gates swooped in to talk them down. One of his arguments that ultimately won the day is that global south people are too stupid and irresponsible to be in charge of important medicine like that.

This photo is staged to reinforced that kind of stereotype.

[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I doubt it’s a problem in only Africa.

[–] W3dd1e@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Idk Bayer made some hemophilia drugs, realized they were tainted with HIV and Hepatitis after it had started selling.

They pulled it from the US and Europe but sold the rest in Asia and Latin America.

They continued producing the medication for something like a year after admitting that it was tainted and when the updated safer version was available, they told distributors to use up the old stock before selling the new version.

Fuck capitalism.

[–] scrion@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

This is pretty much absolutely true by the way:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24785997/

Although, to be fair, that was done by Cutter Labs, which sure, had been acquired by Bayer, but to be honest, Cutter Labs was rotten from the start, they were also responsible for the Cutter incident, infecting people with Polio:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1410842/

[–] Cypher@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

That is disgusting but not surprising behaviour, and is the sort of pure evil that people should actually be calling out big pharma for.

The full article is paywalled but Im going to contact the authors to see if they’ll share a copy.