Bayer sold HIV contaminated drugs overseas

2 Paths of Bayer Drug in 80's: Riskier Type Went Overseas
By WALT BOGDANICH and ERIC KOLI


division of the pharmaceutical company Bayer sold millions of dollars of blood-clotting medicine for hemophiliacs � medicine that carried a high risk of transmitting AIDS � to Asia and Latin America in the mid-1980's while selling a new, safer product in the West, according to documents obtained by The New York Times.

The Bayer unit, Cutter Biological, introduced its safer medicine in late February 1984 as evidence mounted that the earlier version was infecting hemophiliacs with H.I.V. Yet for over a year, the company continued to sell the old medicine overseas, prompting a United States regulator to accuse Cutter of breaking its promise to stop selling the product.

www.nytimes.com...

good find!

God help us all. What else has been unleashed upon us?

There've been a number of lawsuits brought in the US against Cutter Biological for their contaminated product (a googling showed at least 30 of them.) This is going to be one very expensive mistake for Bayer to correct.

And Trader -- it is not uncommon for pharmaceutical companies to sell drugs not permitted in America to other countries. This includes drugs that are at the end of their "shelf life" as well as experimental drugs that haven't met standards for human use (are still experimental drugs.)

The third world, alas, becomes our human laboratory in many cases.

bayer got into plenty of trouble over this in teh US (different subsidiaries) www.aegis.com...
and they were in a lot of trouble just a few months back over an"anti-cholesterol" drug:
www.buzzle.com...

These drug companies always seem to live to poison another day.