Big Pharmaceutical companies, like Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Roche, GlaxoSmithKline and the like are often known to receive a lot of negative criticism.
Incidents like what happened in Northern Nigeria not long ago involving Pfizer and their 'copyrighted drugs' ensuring that no other company or manufacturer is able to produce the required drugs for the outbreak of Bacterial Meningitis. The other problem with Pfizer's actions in this situation was that they did not provide all of the necessary information to the potential patients/patients' parents in getting consent to use these experimental drugs. The patients and their parents were unaware of the lack of previous testing of the drugs before they were used. Unfortunately, these experimental drugs were not quite satisfactory.
Big Pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer are always patenting, or copyrighting their products. In Thailand, a certain company attempted to prevent WHO (world health organisation) from manufacturing well needed drugs. The Big Pharma drugs are usually far too expensive for people in third world countries to afford, that is, when they are available at all.
Big Pharmaceutical companies are also under scrutiny for other sorts of things, like the invention of diseases in order to sell more drugs. Recently, in the US, companies have been manufacturing drugs for the most normal and small everyday things, and advertising them as serious, treatable problems.
Relating to the issue of companies inventing diseases, again, in the US, on company in particular made a drug for "back to school stress" and targeted it at children. "Back to school stress" is actually fairly uncommon around children, and is better known by its more common name of "I don't want to go back to school. It's boring and I don't like it" The advertisement for this product was (allegedly) a TV ad, like an ad for lollies or a cool new toy, targeted at kids, making them want to go out and buy drugs.
These companies that are receiving this criticism almost certainly deserve their attacks for the way their businesses are run. Making products too expensive or patented just to earn a little extra dollar is unfair on the little people. Inventing diagnosable diseases just for the sake of selling a new drug is cheating and unfair on the "sufferer" or consumer. Big Pharma is selfish - not unlike most other large cooperations.
- Darcy Power
Monday, April 25, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
The Interweb: WORLDWIDE.
Over the week, the internet has been the main topic of discussion.
The social networking website Twitter and the "non-profit media organization" Wikileaks have been the two sites that we focused on.
Twitter, the 2006 founded website started out looking like a complete failure. Jack Dorsey, the inventor of the huge success that is Twitter "never appeared to expect any more than babble". Of course, Twitter is used for much more than "babble". People are now using it for countless useful things, as well as the unavoidable babble. Celebrities and politicians are using it to try and gain popularity and make them seem more like their countless followers. People in dire situations such as the protests and riots in the Middle East have been using the website to provide information about where to avoid in the streets, or where a protest might be held, and even to describe what is happening during one. Another very useful use is spreading important information such as locations of evacuation centers, or how far away the cyclone is from major cities and towns,as done during the Cyclone Yasi disaster in Queensland earlier this year.
While the success of Twitter is just growing and becoming more obvious, Julian Assange, the founder and head of Wikileaks has been deep in controversy for quite some time now. Wikileaks, the self described "non-profit media organization" is basically a website where people who have access to secret government and military information go to tell the world about it. It is known for being used to post information which is controversial and could cause a lot of trouble to someone. Different people have different views as to if what Julian Assange has been doing is good or bad. I personally believe that overall, it's hard to tell. Some of the things he (and his team) posts are good and can help people, or expose immoral information/footage, but other things that are posted can just cause harm to people. Not all that long ago, Wikileaks posted some footage that had been taken in an army plane of helicopter of a small group of people huddling in a group. The aircraft open fired and killed most of them, while only two of them were suspect in any way whatsoever. This is the awful truth that is modern day American-style warfare. This sort of thing should be seen and known about. On the other hand, Assange has been publishing names of people who seem to be corrupt in the slightest ways, putting them in danger by their government. Wikileaks also occasionally posts things that governments would really not want out there, sometimes even things that could ruin two (or more) nations relations (not that that has necessarily happened - that it is a possibility). So far, what the organisation has done, is, I believe good, but the day that Julian Assange starts a war will be the day his website becomes a hazard.
The social networking website Twitter and the "non-profit media organization" Wikileaks have been the two sites that we focused on.
Twitter, the 2006 founded website started out looking like a complete failure. Jack Dorsey, the inventor of the huge success that is Twitter "never appeared to expect any more than babble". Of course, Twitter is used for much more than "babble". People are now using it for countless useful things, as well as the unavoidable babble. Celebrities and politicians are using it to try and gain popularity and make them seem more like their countless followers. People in dire situations such as the protests and riots in the Middle East have been using the website to provide information about where to avoid in the streets, or where a protest might be held, and even to describe what is happening during one. Another very useful use is spreading important information such as locations of evacuation centers, or how far away the cyclone is from major cities and towns,as done during the Cyclone Yasi disaster in Queensland earlier this year.
While the success of Twitter is just growing and becoming more obvious, Julian Assange, the founder and head of Wikileaks has been deep in controversy for quite some time now. Wikileaks, the self described "non-profit media organization" is basically a website where people who have access to secret government and military information go to tell the world about it. It is known for being used to post information which is controversial and could cause a lot of trouble to someone. Different people have different views as to if what Julian Assange has been doing is good or bad. I personally believe that overall, it's hard to tell. Some of the things he (and his team) posts are good and can help people, or expose immoral information/footage, but other things that are posted can just cause harm to people. Not all that long ago, Wikileaks posted some footage that had been taken in an army plane of helicopter of a small group of people huddling in a group. The aircraft open fired and killed most of them, while only two of them were suspect in any way whatsoever. This is the awful truth that is modern day American-style warfare. This sort of thing should be seen and known about. On the other hand, Assange has been publishing names of people who seem to be corrupt in the slightest ways, putting them in danger by their government. Wikileaks also occasionally posts things that governments would really not want out there, sometimes even things that could ruin two (or more) nations relations (not that that has necessarily happened - that it is a possibility). So far, what the organisation has done, is, I believe good, but the day that Julian Assange starts a war will be the day his website becomes a hazard.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
People > Poverty
Over the week, we have been talking about poverty, wealth and the gap in between. Now, I am to make a quick summary of an organisation that battles to eliminate poverty. I have chosen the organisation Make Poverty History. Make Poverty History is an organisation made to assist people in heavily poverty stricken countries. Make Poverty History is a coalition of more than 70 aid and development organisations, community and faith-based groups. The organisation has been set up by some of the wealthier countries associated with the UN. Unfortunately, I was not able to access any information about the programs that they run to achieve their goals, which, for future reference are to:
-Eradicate poverty & hunger
-Achieve universal education
-Promote gender equality
-Reduce child mortality
-Improve maternal health
-Combat diseases
-Work on environmental sustainability
-Global partnership.
My next task is to personally rank the UN Millennium Development Goals. These goals are also essentially the goals of the Make Poverty History organisation. Here is a list of the goals in my prioritised order.
-End poverty and hunger
-Achieve universal education
-Improve child health
-Improve maternal health
-Achieve gender equality
-Work on environmental sustainability
-Combat HIV/AIDS
-Achieve global partnership.
All of these goals are very important to the development of the earth and its people. We cannot just make the world all happy and equal and poverty free by completing just one or two of these goals.
The reasons that I put the goals in this order are simple.
Poverty and hunger are the main pressing issues. If people can't eat, people can't live. People living in poverty find life so much harder than people with spare money in their pockets. But to end poverty and hunger, we need to improve universal education. If people are educated, they can find and excel in a job much easier than uneducated people. But simply education can not eliminate poverty. Child and maternal health both need to get better everywhere, especially countries like Chad, Afghanistan and Congo - the three countries with the highest rate of infant mortality, and also three of the countries with the lowest life expectancy. These three countries, (especially Afghanistan and Chad have three of the highest maternal mortality rates, showing that the two issues can be somewhat linked. Basically, health in general must improve. Gender equality, one of my personal highest valued issues is also most likely needed to help the world. If a woman were to try and provide for her family, or herself in a third world country (or a 'developing country' if you prefer) she would most likely find some difficulty in this - somewhat harder than if a man were to do this. If women can't provide for their families, their families stay poor, and they slip into (or stay in) poverty. Now, not to get all 'hippie' about this, but environmental sustainability is important for a great number of things. Health is affected if sustainability is not first thought about, resources disappear, making essentials harder to find and more expensive, and of course, climate change kicks in and kills everyone. Combating HIV/AIDS would have ranked higher in my list if it was simply "improving health" but HIV/AIDS are not the only thing people are dying from. It is a small problem compared to all of the other life threatening health issues in the world. Lastly, I listed "Achieve global partnership". Global partnership is certainly important for poorer countries to maybe be helped a little bit by the richer countries like USA, Britain, Australia, (I might have mention Japan if this was written last week, but probably not so much right now)and other well off countries.
*insert witty summing up line here*
-Written by me - Darcy.
-Eradicate poverty & hunger
-Achieve universal education
-Promote gender equality
-Reduce child mortality
-Improve maternal health
-Combat diseases
-Work on environmental sustainability
-Global partnership.
My next task is to personally rank the UN Millennium Development Goals. These goals are also essentially the goals of the Make Poverty History organisation. Here is a list of the goals in my prioritised order.
-End poverty and hunger
-Achieve universal education
-Improve child health
-Improve maternal health
-Achieve gender equality
-Work on environmental sustainability
-Combat HIV/AIDS
-Achieve global partnership.
All of these goals are very important to the development of the earth and its people. We cannot just make the world all happy and equal and poverty free by completing just one or two of these goals.
The reasons that I put the goals in this order are simple.
Poverty and hunger are the main pressing issues. If people can't eat, people can't live. People living in poverty find life so much harder than people with spare money in their pockets. But to end poverty and hunger, we need to improve universal education. If people are educated, they can find and excel in a job much easier than uneducated people. But simply education can not eliminate poverty. Child and maternal health both need to get better everywhere, especially countries like Chad, Afghanistan and Congo - the three countries with the highest rate of infant mortality, and also three of the countries with the lowest life expectancy. These three countries, (especially Afghanistan and Chad have three of the highest maternal mortality rates, showing that the two issues can be somewhat linked. Basically, health in general must improve. Gender equality, one of my personal highest valued issues is also most likely needed to help the world. If a woman were to try and provide for her family, or herself in a third world country (or a 'developing country' if you prefer) she would most likely find some difficulty in this - somewhat harder than if a man were to do this. If women can't provide for their families, their families stay poor, and they slip into (or stay in) poverty. Now, not to get all 'hippie' about this, but environmental sustainability is important for a great number of things. Health is affected if sustainability is not first thought about, resources disappear, making essentials harder to find and more expensive, and of course, climate change kicks in and kills everyone. Combating HIV/AIDS would have ranked higher in my list if it was simply "improving health" but HIV/AIDS are not the only thing people are dying from. It is a small problem compared to all of the other life threatening health issues in the world. Lastly, I listed "Achieve global partnership". Global partnership is certainly important for poorer countries to maybe be helped a little bit by the richer countries like USA, Britain, Australia, (I might have mention Japan if this was written last week, but probably not so much right now)and other well off countries.
*insert witty summing up line here*
-Written by me - Darcy.
Friday, February 25, 2011
The UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Human rights are definitely a good idea & concept to have in the world, to eliminate poverty and inequality. Unfortunately, they are not always referred to and are often ignored. Most countries in the world did sign the pact to obey the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but not all and not all of the countries that agreed to go by them have been doing so. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is basically a list of universal laws and rules that every country must follow, in order to maintain peace and for every global citizen to be equal.
If not for The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the world's poverty levels would probably be higher, there is a chance that inequality would be a more socially acceptable concept and more governments could (still) be monopolies and dictatorships.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has seemingly been one of the things that has improved life quality for people (especially poor people) in the past 60 or so years. Since they were brought into action, not long after World War II, there haven't been any wars taken place in first world countries, people have been able to fight for their rights and win, like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela and Dictatorships have stepped down. Now, These things all could have happened without the The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but in my opinion, it certainly helped.
Of course, Human Rights do get breached very frequently, especially in 3rd world countries. The protests in Egypt, Libya and other Middle Eastern countries have definitely shown how little progress has been made in some places. The Egyptian protesters had been rallying against their power mongering dictator leader for almost a month before he gave in, which sparked hope for people in other parts of the world who are in a similar situation. Hundreds of Egyptian protesters died, just because they wanted to know what it was really like to have these "Universal Human Rights" that they had heard so much about.
I think there are quite a few people and groups who are responsible for the lack of Human Rights in some countries. The UN, and its representatives could possibly be doing a better job of making sure people all over the world are getting treated the same; fairly. But, of course, it's not just the UN's fault that leaders of countries are not being true to the The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Each country's leader and UN representative should be making sure that they're doing the right thing in order to make their country a better place to live in, and to give their country a better name. I believe that the UN should be punishing leaders and counties in some way for not following the Declaration to prevent these breaches from occurring in the first place.
-Expert Blogger Darcy Power
If not for The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the world's poverty levels would probably be higher, there is a chance that inequality would be a more socially acceptable concept and more governments could (still) be monopolies and dictatorships.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has seemingly been one of the things that has improved life quality for people (especially poor people) in the past 60 or so years. Since they were brought into action, not long after World War II, there haven't been any wars taken place in first world countries, people have been able to fight for their rights and win, like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela and Dictatorships have stepped down. Now, These things all could have happened without the The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but in my opinion, it certainly helped.
Of course, Human Rights do get breached very frequently, especially in 3rd world countries. The protests in Egypt, Libya and other Middle Eastern countries have definitely shown how little progress has been made in some places. The Egyptian protesters had been rallying against their power mongering dictator leader for almost a month before he gave in, which sparked hope for people in other parts of the world who are in a similar situation. Hundreds of Egyptian protesters died, just because they wanted to know what it was really like to have these "Universal Human Rights" that they had heard so much about.
I think there are quite a few people and groups who are responsible for the lack of Human Rights in some countries. The UN, and its representatives could possibly be doing a better job of making sure people all over the world are getting treated the same; fairly. But, of course, it's not just the UN's fault that leaders of countries are not being true to the The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Each country's leader and UN representative should be making sure that they're doing the right thing in order to make their country a better place to live in, and to give their country a better name. I believe that the UN should be punishing leaders and counties in some way for not following the Declaration to prevent these breaches from occurring in the first place.
-Expert Blogger Darcy Power
Sunday, February 13, 2011
And I was like, Babel, Babel Babel, ohh!
The 2006 movie Babel highlighted differences in countries, mainly Morroco, Japan and Mexico.
One of the things highlighted was the family stucture portrayed throughout the film. In Morocco, the young boys of the family (probably about 7-11 years old) were trusted with the rifle to protect the goats that were being farmed by the family for meat and income. The man of the house went off to the nearest town to do buisness all day, and the women and young girls did work around the house. In Japan, a father and daughter lived in a big city, and the daughter would go off and have fun with her friends, while the father was at work all day. This was suprisingly similar, except the child could easily go off and do whatever she wanted because of the wealth of the family, and common Japanese family structure. Finally, to compare these with, was the Mexican and American families. The Amreican family was quite rich, with the parents hiring a maid to take care of the children, while they were in Morrocco, mourning the death of another son of theirs. The Mexican family was seemingly quite poor, but they managed to have lots of fun with the smallest things at the maid's son's wedding. In that family, all of the adults were equal, and the children could be easily entertained.
Annother thing to not was the health standards in the different countries. In Morocco, where Susan (the American tourist) got shot, there wasn't a hospital or anything like one anywhere near where they were. There was nothing that could be done where they were except keep pressure on the gunshot wound, and stitch it up with a hot needle and thread. There weren't any other examples for the other countries in the film, but we know anyway that the health system in Japan or America would have been able to take care of something like this.
I believe that the director & writers of this film were trying to convey a message about guns and irresponsibility with guns in the world. The father of the two Moroccan children had trusted his young, pre-pubescent children with a rifle to protect their livestock from wild animals. Obviously, this turned out to be a bad idea. Of course, most people in Western societies wouldn't give their young children guns, but because of this family's structure, and the way that these people live, it wasn't an idea that would be questioned. Unfortunately, the young Moroccan boys were misusing the gun, and ended up nearly killing an innocent woman. This is saying that the director and writers of the film have the opinion that guns are dangerous, and should only be used by responsible people, or no-one at all.
Lastly, it is mentionable that the people in charge of the making of this film had a fairly big task to try and portray the world, and the different countries that these events took place in. I can't really comment on this, because I don't really know much about all of these countries and their people's life styles, but, whether they were right or wrong about it all, the film makers were fairly convincing throughout the film that they knew what they were doing, making this movie.
By the very talented etc Darcy Power.
One of the things highlighted was the family stucture portrayed throughout the film. In Morocco, the young boys of the family (probably about 7-11 years old) were trusted with the rifle to protect the goats that were being farmed by the family for meat and income. The man of the house went off to the nearest town to do buisness all day, and the women and young girls did work around the house. In Japan, a father and daughter lived in a big city, and the daughter would go off and have fun with her friends, while the father was at work all day. This was suprisingly similar, except the child could easily go off and do whatever she wanted because of the wealth of the family, and common Japanese family structure. Finally, to compare these with, was the Mexican and American families. The Amreican family was quite rich, with the parents hiring a maid to take care of the children, while they were in Morrocco, mourning the death of another son of theirs. The Mexican family was seemingly quite poor, but they managed to have lots of fun with the smallest things at the maid's son's wedding. In that family, all of the adults were equal, and the children could be easily entertained.
Annother thing to not was the health standards in the different countries. In Morocco, where Susan (the American tourist) got shot, there wasn't a hospital or anything like one anywhere near where they were. There was nothing that could be done where they were except keep pressure on the gunshot wound, and stitch it up with a hot needle and thread. There weren't any other examples for the other countries in the film, but we know anyway that the health system in Japan or America would have been able to take care of something like this.
I believe that the director & writers of this film were trying to convey a message about guns and irresponsibility with guns in the world. The father of the two Moroccan children had trusted his young, pre-pubescent children with a rifle to protect their livestock from wild animals. Obviously, this turned out to be a bad idea. Of course, most people in Western societies wouldn't give their young children guns, but because of this family's structure, and the way that these people live, it wasn't an idea that would be questioned. Unfortunately, the young Moroccan boys were misusing the gun, and ended up nearly killing an innocent woman. This is saying that the director and writers of the film have the opinion that guns are dangerous, and should only be used by responsible people, or no-one at all.
Lastly, it is mentionable that the people in charge of the making of this film had a fairly big task to try and portray the world, and the different countries that these events took place in. I can't really comment on this, because I don't really know much about all of these countries and their people's life styles, but, whether they were right or wrong about it all, the film makers were fairly convincing throughout the film that they knew what they were doing, making this movie.
By the very talented etc Darcy Power.
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