The CNN article above mentions the Chinese powdered milk formula contamination with melamine, the Chinese executives and officials who were found most responsible for that food scandal
were executed.
These people have their equivalents in the West in big pharma and contaminated consumer products, but when scandals similar or worse than the Chinese milk formula are uncovered, they skate. Merck's deadly Vioxx drug caused the death of 55,000 Americans, and Merck knew it. No consequences for the culprits, if this was a Chinese company, heads would have rolled, if it was a Japanese one, several executive would have committed ritual suicide, but these Merck scumbags skated, barely a slap on the wrist, xero personal accountability.
In contrasting China and America, pundits often cite our free and independent media as one of our greatest strengths, together with the tremendous importance which our society places upon individual American lives. For us, a single wrongful death can sometimes provoke weeks of massive media...
www.unz.com
Audio version:
https://www.unz.com/CONTENTS/AUDIO/runz/Unz-AmPravda-AmericanVioxx.mp3?_=1
"...First, consider the details of the Chinese infant formula scandal of 2008. Unscrupulous businessmen had discovered they could save money by greatly diluting their milk products, then adding a plastic chemical compound called melamine to raise the apparent protein content back to normal levels. Nearly 300,000 babies throughout China had suffered urinary problems, with many hundreds requiring lengthy hospitalization for kidney stones. Six died. A wave of popular outrage swept past the controlled media roadblocks and initial government excuses, and soon put enormous pressure on Chinese officials to take forceful action against the wrongdoers.
China’s leaders may not be democratically elected, but they pay close attention to strong popular sentiment. Once pressed, they quickly launched a national police investigation which led to a series of arrests and uncovered evidence that this widespread system of food adulteration had been protected by bribe-taking government officials.
Long prison sentences were freely handed out and a couple of the guiltiest culprits were eventually tried and executed for their role, measures that gradually assuaged popular anger. Indeed, the former head of the Chinese FDA had been executed for corruption in late 2007 under similar circumstances.
Throughout these events, American media coverage was extensive, with numerous front-page stories in our leading newspapers. Journalists discovered that similar methods of dangerous chemical adulteration had been used to produce Chinese pet food for export, and many family dogs in America had suffered or died as a result. With heavy coverage on talk radio and cable news shows, phrases such as “Chinese baby formula” or “Chinese pet food” became angry slurs, and there was talk of banning whole categories of imports from a country whose product safety standards were obviously so far below those found in Western societies. The legitimate concerns of ordinary Americans were fanned by local media coverage that sometimes bordered on the hysterical.
However, the American media reaction had been quite different during an earlier health scandal much closer to home.
In September 2004, Merck, one of America’s largest pharmaceutical companies, suddenly announced that it was voluntarily recalling Vioxx, its popular anti-pain medication widely used to treat arthritis-related ailments. This abrupt recall came just days after Merck discovered that a top medical journal was about to publish a massive study by an FDA investigator indicating that
the drug in question greatly increased the risk of fatal heart attacks and strokes and had probably been responsible for at least 55,000 American deaths during the five years it had been on the market.
Within weeks of the recall, journalists discovered that
Merck had found strong evidence of the potentially fatal side-effects of this drug even before its initial 1999 introduction, but had ignored these worrisome indicators and avoided additional testing, while suppressing the concerns of its own scientists. Boosted by a television advertising budget averaging a hundred million dollars per year,
Vioxx soon became one of Merck’s most lucrative products, generating over $2 billion in yearly revenue. Merck had also secretly ghostwritten dozens of the published research studies emphasizing the beneficial aspects of the drug and encouraging doctors to widely prescribe it, thus transforming science into marketing support.
Twenty-five million Americans were eventually prescribed Vioxx as an aspirin-substitute thought to produce fewer complications.
The circumstances of this case were exceptionally egregious, with many tens of thousands of American deaths due to the sale of a highly lucrative but sometimes fatal drug, whose harmful effects had long been known to its manufacturer.
But there is no sign that criminal charges were ever considered.
...against these important factors we must consider the raw numbers involved.
American journalists seemed to focus more attention on a half-dozen fatalities in China than they did on the premature deaths of as many as 500,000 of their fellow American citizens.
The inescapable conclusion is that in today’s world and in the opinion of our own media, American lives are quite cheap, unlike those in China.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Bottom line: if Merck was a Chinese company, the executives and scientists whose product knowingly killed tens of thousands of people would have been lined up and shot.
Also the food scandals in China have long had their equivalents by multinationals like Nestlé or J&J:
Nestlé is one of the four most-boycotted companies in the world, having been subjected to the longest-running worldwide boycott in history, now nearing 50 years. Let's see why. The production and sale of baby milk powder is one of the largest, probably the most profitable, and unquestionably the...
www.unz.com
www.businessinsider.com
