cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/29436532
Public anger in China over concerns raised by doctors that generic drugs used in public hospitals are increasingly ineffective has led to a rare response from the government.
Doctors say they believe the country’s drug procurement system, which incentivises the use of cheap generic drugs over original brand-name pharmaceuticals, has led to costs being cut at the expense of people’s safety.
But officials, quoted by multiple state media outlets on Sunday, say the issue is one of perception rather than reality.
One report said different people simply had different reactions to medicines and that claims about them being ineffective had “mostly come from people’s anecdotes and subjective feelings”.
The official response has done little to allay public fears over the reputation of drugs in public hospitals and pharmacies. It is the latest challenge to a healthcare system that is already under enormous strain because of a rapidly ageing population.
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I regularly prescribe generics, they are exactly as effective as the brand drugs and allow the healthcare system to spend money on actually improving its service instead (drug costs are 25 % of the Spanish healthcare expenditure iirc, and that counts pay for missed workdays as an item). This looks like pharma industry is trying to spread FUD on social media to try and boost sales.
Doctors say they believe the country’s drug procurement system, which incentivises the use of cheap generic drugs over original brand-name pharmaceuticals, has led to costs being cut at the expense of people’s safety.
The irony of the BBC posting this when the NHS does exactly the same.
Downvote for whataboutery.
It’s not whataboutery, my point is that they’re portraying it as something terrible, when it has worked (mostly) fine in the UK for years.
It’s obvious sinophobic framing, that the nasty reds are doing something to harm their people, when we do exactly the same.
i dont think you understand the situation, or at least read the article. there is no problem buying cheaper but still effective medicine. but the porblem in china is that govt choose to buy domestic cheap version, which usually is inferior to the original, instead of better quality western imported ones. to make it worse, the price the govt offers tends to be way way way cheap sometimes even impossible for manufacturer to make equavulent quality (with some speculating that the latest price drop down is due to they spend to much on zero-covid policy). this is already causing problem in practice.
the price the govt offers tends to be way way way cheap sometimes even impossible for manufacturer
I read what it said about aspirin, but the UK pays around £1 for 100 for that, so the idea it could be made in China for less than a cent per pill doesn’t seem impossible.
It sounds like the issue is with companies with poor QC being allowed to bid in their reverse auction system, rather than the system in itself.
it’s not “it’s imporssible to manufacture”, but it’s imporssible to maintain the quality. because they actively slashed the price alot, and normally everything tend to be more expensive overtime because of economic development, so there’s even lesser for manufacturer to put into actual making the medicine. there’s an anectdote a chemistry teacher complains about aspirin nowadays wont complete his experiments. there’re alot complaints about other medicines i dont even want to start.
also the whole system is not exact “biding system”, the govt controls everything, that 's the reason why it is so cheap but manufacturer still choose to make the deal. that’s the whole point: cut.
the thrifty thing has been going on for several years, before this one, there were mutiple outcries not even make to international news. the drug procurement system has been target for a long time even among those who consider themselves patriotic (or in other word, pinky).
besides from cutting price substantially, they also replaces “western medicine” with cheap ineffective traditional chinese medicine. it’s a common sense now that you should reject if the doctor write you such chinse medicine, and push them to write some modern ones, at least “combined chinese-western medicine”. and in some case this is even not possible any more, because there’s literally no western medicine available, because the govt dont actually buy those ones, at the end of the day patients can only choose between low quality chinese ones.
at last, do i think the manufacturer dont have qc problem? of course not, but it’s not the main point, the elephant in the room is the whole system, the system dont change, the quality cant be protected. it’s the impossible situation, the govt want cheaper price, but expecting quality dont change. the whole system is not designed to cut expense while maintain quality, it’s simply about saving money.
Is it britophobic if you criticize the UK? And europhobic when being critical of the EU? - No one would likely say that, I’v never heard it.
It actually is something terrible. If it happens also in the UK and anywhere else doesn’t make it better (but feel free to post a new article here on the UK malpractice, I am curious whether there will be a similar whataboutery like, “But this happens also in China” - what do you expect?).
This is pure whataboutery, and it does not enhance debate culture here. This is why I end this discussion.
