The FDA sent a public “warning letter” to Ranbaxy in 2006 about reported irregularities in the company’s quality control efforts. It concluded that the drugs, which included anti-retroviral HIV/AIDs medications, “show much lower potencies in these batches.”
Although Ranbaxy’s generic drugs are now barred from being sold in the U.S., CHAI and the former president continue to praise Ranbaxy and distribute the company’s HIV/AID drugs to patients abroad.
Bill heaped praise on Ranbaxy in 2013 during a speech in Mumbai, saying, the drugs saved millions of lives.
Neither CHAI nor the Clinton Foundation have announced they severed ties with Ranbaxy.
Thakur said he’s now a public health activist who tries to get global health charities to focus on the quality of drugs rather than simply on “access” to patients.
The whistleblower tried to meet with CHAI and Clinton Foundation officials, but was only met with silence. “I have tried to reach out to them,” he said. “But I haven’t had a great amount of success with the Clinton Foundation.”
CHAI was a part of the Clinton Foundation until 2010, when it spun off into a separate entity. The groups still have some overlapping board members and staff, and they continue to operate in close coordination. Bill Clinton, for example, is deeply involved with both organizations.
Charles Ortel, a Wall Street analyst who has been an outspoken critic of the legal missteps by the Clinton Foundation, claims their separation was “deeply suspect.”
“In the application, trustees of the new entity, including Bill Clinton, falsely claim the entity is not a successor to previous efforts. This is not true. They purposefully obscure the fact that a similar operation called ‘CHAI’ was by far the largest piece of the original Foundation,” Ortel said.
The congressional study suggests Bill may have relaxed quality standards in a 2000 executive order.
He signed an executive order that, “relaxed intellectual property policy standards,” promising the U.S. government “would not revoke or revise the intellectual property laws of any ‘Sub-Saharan country’ relating to HIV/AIDS medicines or technologies,” the report states.
CHAI announced in October 2003 it was going to distribute generic, low-cost HIV drugs from four foreign drug manufacturers: Ranbaxy; Cipla of Mumbai, India; Matrix Labs of Hydrabad, India; Aspen Pharmacare of Johannesburg, South Africa.
CHAI’s endorsement also allowed Ranbaxy to manufacture HIV drugs that would be bought by the U.S. government under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS relief — a $15 billion initiative proposed by former President George W. Bush.
The flow of U.S. funds combined with Clinton’s endorsement allowed the four foreign drug manufactures to become “good acquisition targets,” according to the study.
Ranbaxy filed 10 abbreviated new drug applications, three of which were approved by the FDA, according to the congressional study. Eventually, the firm would produce 13 generic HIV drugs.
The companies enjoyed great financial profits and they “exploded as they partnered with the Foundation for several years,” the report states.
The study also examined the key players in the Clinton-CHAI orbit, the potential for corruption and how the program ultimately benefited the Clinton Foundation in terms of donor contributions.
One relationship unearthed by the report was the American Indian Foundation, which Clinton co-founded with Indian-American businessmen Rajat Gupta and Vinod Gupta in 2001.
Rajat was convicted of insider trading in 2012 in a sensational trial.
Vinod eventually was forced to resign as CEO and chairman of the company Info Group and was fined $9 million in a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation. One of the charges stated Vinod had awarded Bill $3.3 million without board approval.
Blackburn says the worst part of the story were the “false hopes” offered by the Clinton Foundation.
“You think about the emotional state of health care workers as they are dealing with these individuals and the emotional state of the patients. To me it’s disturbing and very sad,” she said.
Article Appeared @http://www.africanglobe.net/headlines/clinton-foundation-distributed-watered-aids-drugs-african-countries/