I had the great pleasure of listening to Ms. Katherine Eban speak about her book. I have not read it yet and look forward to doing so. With that said, the entire conversation between her and Dan Hartman, the moderator, from the Bill and Melinda Gates’ Foundation was just awkward. Awkward… I felt that Dr. Hartman was trying to tone down the remarks from Ms. Eban. I am not going to say she is racist because I don’t know her. It just seemed the language coming out of her mouth sounded extremely derogatory towards India and China. She kept using words such as “sub-standard” and making it sound like the U.S. is superior. I asked the question in the comments section, “Did you mention Elizabeth Holmes in your book?” She didn’t have time to answer it. I know that the whole situation with Theranos does not fit exactly within the context of “Bottle of Lies” but for heaven’s sake, the U.S. is not perfect and our regulatory system is not perfect. The best take away from what she had to say based on the conversation, in my opinion, is that we should absolutely work out with other government agencies how ALL, not just the U.S. FDA, should be able to drop in on any pharmaceutical companies at any time. When the U.S. FDA does its own visits at sites, they do it completely by surprise. This element of surprise is critical to ensuring that everyone is acting (hopefully) as they should. Mrs. Eban was adamant that we needed to bring home manufacturing of pharmaceuticals on our own turf because others were doing it with sub-standards. I liked that Dr. Hartman kept generalizing her statements about how all countries would feel better about bringing manufacturing of pharmaceuticals on their own land so that they can all feel better about transparency. The U.S. is not perfect. We cannot state that India’s or China’s system is broken because of some ill-behaving companies. The companies do not represent the country. Everyone can be doing better. There is room for improvement everywhere.
I just heard about a shooting targeting Asians in Atlanta yesterday on 3.17.21. So incredibly sad. Why must there be so much hatred? If you look for bad you will find it. If you look for good you will find it. Let’s talk about how we can help the system and not blame countries, cultures, or societies. This is our world. We should all be in the same boat.
These opinions are mine and mine alone and do not represent any company I am affiliated with.