For Export Only: Pharmaceuticals

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Why is a product banned "here" OK to export "there"?
Can double standards ever be ethical in the global market?

Malaysia: A pharmacist sells an "appetite stimulant" for children that can cause permanent sex changes

Profits versus public health
Written, directed and produced by Robert Richter

Documents U.S. and western European medicines that are exported to developing nations with minimal, misleading or non-existent information about indications, contra-indications, side effects or warnings.

Only one manufacturer agreed to be interviewed for this hard-hitting report. It then tried to bribe the producer to cancel its telecast.

American Association for the Advancement of Science
- Distinguished Science Reporting Award
DuPont Columbia Broadcast Journalism Award (TV's Pulitzer Prize)

"Elucidating, shocking...depicts the shocking truth...5 out of 5 stars..."
—DANDT, U.S.A., April 8, 2011

The products are banned or restricted in their countries of origin because they cause blindness, liver disorders, central nervous system diseases, permanent sex changes in children, sterility and death in humans, and are carcinogenic or teratogenic in laboratory animals.

"Of value and interest. It will present another face of the pharmaceutical industry, contrasting greatly with the one ordinarily presented to students and practitioners of medicine and pharmacy in the U.S."
—Journal of Pharmacy Teaching

Specific products and manufacturers are named as the film documents their use and abuse in Mexico, Costa Rica, Brazil, Kenya, Japan, Bangladesh and Malaysia. Today’s brand names may be changed, but the practices documented have not.

"More of a piece of investigative journalism than any other program honored. And what made it special was that it was produced not by a major station or network, but by Robert Richter, an independent producer. He beat the networks, with all their money, at their own game."
—New York Times report on DuPont Columbia Award (TV’s Pulitzer Prize)

57 minutes
This is Part Two of two one-hours on this global practice.
Part One is For Export Only: Pesticides

Study Areas: business and society, business ethics, contemporary moral problems, consumer issues, developing world studies, environmental sociology, international business/trade/marketing, political sociology, public health, sociobiology, Third World studies, legal and ethical health care, biological and medical ethics, pharmacological nursing, broadcast journalism

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For Export Only: Pharmaceuticals