cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/29436532
Public anger in China over concerns raised by doctors that generic drugs used in public hospitals are increasingly ineffective has led to a rare response from the government.
Doctors say they believe the country’s drug procurement system, which incentivises the use of cheap generic drugs over original brand-name pharmaceuticals, has led to costs being cut at the expense of people’s safety.
But officials, quoted by multiple state media outlets on Sunday, say the issue is one of perception rather than reality.
One report said different people simply had different reactions to medicines and that claims about them being ineffective had “mostly come from people’s anecdotes and subjective feelings”.
The official response has done little to allay public fears over the reputation of drugs in public hospitals and pharmacies. It is the latest challenge to a healthcare system that is already under enormous strain because of a rapidly ageing population.
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it’s not “it’s imporssible to manufacture”, but it’s imporssible to maintain the quality. because they actively slashed the price alot, and normally everything tend to be more expensive overtime because of economic development, so there’s even lesser for manufacturer to put into actual making the medicine. there’s an anectdote a chemistry teacher complains about aspirin nowadays wont complete his experiments. there’re alot complaints about other medicines i dont even want to start.
also the whole system is not exact “biding system”, the govt controls everything, that 's the reason why it is so cheap but manufacturer still choose to make the deal. that’s the whole point: cut.
the thrifty thing has been going on for several years, before this one, there were mutiple outcries not even make to international news. the drug procurement system has been target for a long time even among those who consider themselves patriotic (or in other word, pinky).
besides from cutting price substantially, they also replaces “western medicine” with cheap ineffective traditional chinese medicine. it’s a common sense now that you should reject if the doctor write you such chinse medicine, and push them to write some modern ones, at least “combined chinese-western medicine”. and in some case this is even not possible any more, because there’s literally no western medicine available, because the govt dont actually buy those ones, at the end of the day patients can only choose between low quality chinese ones.
at last, do i think the manufacturer dont have qc problem? of course not, but it’s not the main point, the elephant in the room is the whole system, the system dont change, the quality cant be protected. it’s the impossible situation, the govt want cheaper price, but expecting quality dont change. the whole system is not designed to cut expense while maintain quality, it’s simply about saving money.