Ranbaxy was intimidated by US to withdraw the generic ARVs

[Guest guest]

Dear FORUM,

The following email gives some insight into what might have gone wrong in

Ranbaxy's withdrawal of its generics. Don't we all enjoy, celeberate Bush's

second term??!! The msSAgE is forwarded from Healthgap listserve. The author of

this mail is Gregg Gonsalves of GMHC, New York. I removed his email address as

a solidarity to respect his privacy.

Surendra

surendra@...

****************

From Gregg Gonsalves of GMHC, New York

The reason these drugs have been withdrawn is that Ranbaxy is being intimidated

by the US government and the company has been strongarmed into seeking approval

from the FDA where they are submitting data very soon. If they thought these

drugs were neither safe or effective, they certainly wouldn't be going to the

FDA.

Again, reporters and editors don't dig too deep and are taking the propaganda

from the Bush Administration and its surrogates at face-value. While there are

indeed problems with some of the bioequivalence data from Ranbaxy and Cipla,

there is other data to suggest that these drugs are indeed safe and effective.

There is a coordinated campaign here to line up the US government and the FDA

as the global arbiter of drug quality, particularly for the developing world.

The fact that some Bush Administration officials and their surrogates, like the

Hudson Institute, Public Health Watch and Frontiers for Freedom are exagerating

the problems with generic ARVs, means that this entire debate is NOT happening

in good faith-sadly the Hudson Institute, Public Health Watch, Frontiers for

Freedom have never had any interest in HIV/AIDS, what they DO have an interest

in is supporting right-wing social and economic policies and acting as the shock

troops of the extreme right wing of the Republican Party. We need to fight

these people.