The Body Hunters

This explosive book reveals the unethical drug testing practices of the multinational pharmaceutical industry. In its quest to develop lucrative new drugs for the world’s rich, the industry has turned away from the health needs of the poor. 90 per cent of the global medical budget takes aim at just 10 per cent of the world’s disease burden. And yet, over the past decade, pharmaceutical companies have exported their clinical research business to the South – where ethical oversight is minimal, and ‘guinea pigs’ in the form of sick, poor and desperate patients are abundant. The result is that whilst 500 million cases of malaria rage across the developing world, the working poor of Asia and Africa, desparate for the kind of hi-tech care available to them solely through clinical research, line up for experimental doses of the latest arthritis, heart disease and obesity drugs.