Oneloveheretic
BANNED
New Recruit
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2018
- Messages
- 72
- Reaction score
- -3
- Country
- Location
View attachment 518635View attachment 518636View attachment 518637
Despite health insurance, terminally ill patients have to hunt around the world and on the internet for ways to stay alive.
JINZHOU, China — Zhang Zhejun used a fat plastic straw to gently tap the pale yellow pharmaceutical powder onto a piece of silver foil that lay on an electronic scale. He made sure the amount was just right before he poured it into a clear capsule.
When you’re making cancer drugs at home, the measurements must be precise.
Mr. Zhang has no medical experience and no background in making drugs professionally. He did this out of desperation. His mother suffered from lung cancer and required expensive drugs that China’s ambitious but troubled health care system couldn’t provide.
He was aware of the risks. The drug he was making hadn’t been approved by regulators in China or the United States. Mr. Zhang had bought the raw ingredients online, but he wasn’t sure from whom, or whether they were even real.
“We’re not picky. We don’t have the right to choose,” he said. “You just hope the sellers have a conscience.”
Image
Zhang Zhejun, a salesmen in Hebei, China, made his own drugs from ingredients purchased online to give to his mother, who suffered from lung cancer.CreditJonah M. Kessel
Image
“I was pretty helpless and lost when I found the ‘do-it-yourself’ drugs on a form online,” Mr. Zhang said. “It doesn’t require professional skills to make these drugs. It’s pretty easy.” His mother died months after this image was recorded.
In China, the public has become increasingly concerned about access to drugs, putting pressure on the leadership. This summer’s box-office hit “Dying to Survive” was based on the real-life story of a Chinese leukemia patient who ran a buyers’ club, smuggling generic drugs from India to save himself and others. It was almost universally lauded for shedding light on the difficulties of getting cancer drugs in China....(continued)
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/11/business/china-drugs-smuggled-homemade.html
Despite health insurance, terminally ill patients have to hunt around the world and on the internet for ways to stay alive.
JINZHOU, China — Zhang Zhejun used a fat plastic straw to gently tap the pale yellow pharmaceutical powder onto a piece of silver foil that lay on an electronic scale. He made sure the amount was just right before he poured it into a clear capsule.
When you’re making cancer drugs at home, the measurements must be precise.
Mr. Zhang has no medical experience and no background in making drugs professionally. He did this out of desperation. His mother suffered from lung cancer and required expensive drugs that China’s ambitious but troubled health care system couldn’t provide.
He was aware of the risks. The drug he was making hadn’t been approved by regulators in China or the United States. Mr. Zhang had bought the raw ingredients online, but he wasn’t sure from whom, or whether they were even real.
“We’re not picky. We don’t have the right to choose,” he said. “You just hope the sellers have a conscience.”
Image
Zhang Zhejun, a salesmen in Hebei, China, made his own drugs from ingredients purchased online to give to his mother, who suffered from lung cancer.CreditJonah M. Kessel
Image
“I was pretty helpless and lost when I found the ‘do-it-yourself’ drugs on a form online,” Mr. Zhang said. “It doesn’t require professional skills to make these drugs. It’s pretty easy.” His mother died months after this image was recorded.
In China, the public has become increasingly concerned about access to drugs, putting pressure on the leadership. This summer’s box-office hit “Dying to Survive” was based on the real-life story of a Chinese leukemia patient who ran a buyers’ club, smuggling generic drugs from India to save himself and others. It was almost universally lauded for shedding light on the difficulties of getting cancer drugs in China....(continued)
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/11/business/china-drugs-smuggled-homemade.html
