The Politics of the Drug Industry

A working paper on the drug industry produced by the Vancouver Women's Health Collective (VWHC), which is critical of the pharmaceutical industry's relationship with doctors and pharmacists, of the profit-driven nature of the industry, and of the inadequate testing that is done on new drugs before they are introduced onto the market. The paper is also critical of human experimentation and unethical practices undertaken on unconsenting or uninformed, socially- and physically-vulnerable people in drug testing. Identifying women, especially third-world women, as victims of human experimentation for drug testing, the paper refers to the distribution of Depo Provera to institutionalized women and women in poor countries, as evidence of the dangerous and unlawful practices of drug companies. The answer to the question posed at the end: "What do we do?", is addressed by a call for social change and a recognition of social conditions as the cause of ill health.