"Should Pfizer's Convictions Have Them Convicted?"

How often have you ever witnessed a doctor hand someone a pack of cigarettes and say, "Smoke two, and call me in the morning?" The tobacco industry is infamous for its power to silence people and for selling products that eventually lead to death. Unfortunately, there is a parallel in the pharmaceutical world. Business and ethics have long been conflicting priorities in a world of globalization and capitalism. A multibillion dollar enterprise can make a substantial profit by misinforming the American public and allegedly murdering children in Nigeria. With products promoted to help people and putting money in doctor's pockets, Pfizer, one of the biggest companies in the world, (total assets from 2007 were about $10.562 billion) has become very well protected. They are represented by the best legal team resources can buy and for any unfavorable settlements federal governments such as the US or Nigeria will happily accumulate wealth through lawsuits.
Pfizer has a history of exploitive business practices. In May 2007, The Washington Post reported that Pfizer could face criminal charges for activities that occurred in Nigeria in 1996. Eleven children died as a result of a clinical trial of the drug Trovan. It was allegedly administered without parental consent to treat meningitis. According to the Post,"Nigeria's health minister appointed a panel of experts...the panel had concluded Pfizer's actions violated Nigerian law, the International Declaration of Helsinki and the UN Convention on the Rights of the child." Criminal charges have been dropped as a result of an out of court settlement paid to the Nigerian government for $75 million. These reparations trade hands from a large corporation to a group of government officials but not to the families of the victims or the many children who survived the test drug with severe side effects. Justice is absent under a system where businesses can pay off a government and all the past offenses against citizens are wiped clean.
Aside from deceiving children in third-world countries, Pfizer was just fined for targeting the American public, as well. The US Government fined the pharmaceutical company $2.3 billion for selling drugs for reasons and at dosages not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Sue Lannin for The World Today reported,"Pfizer paid the fines to settle criminal and civil allegations that it illegally sold four drugs not approved by the FDA." Interesting to note that a company is eliminating a consumer's choice to be a test subject for experimental medication. John Kopchinski, a former Pfizer employee and a Gulf War veteran brought to light ethical problems he encountered as a sales representative. "...I was expected to increase profits at all costs, even when sales meant endangering lives. " It is evident that Pfizer is willing to disregard the lives of the consumers it claims to be committed to saving. When profits are the sole motivation for medicine and not the ideology of helping people it might be time to educate consumers in the same way cigarette companies have been mandated to.
During the recent court hearings on Nigeria's lawsuit, Judge Wesley wrote, "I conclude that non-consensual medical experimentation by private actors, though deplorable, is not actionable under international law." What legal action should be taken to fix a system that does not allow irresponsible behavior to be reprimanded? With the increasing size of the company and the new deal to buy Wyeth, a competitor, they continue to grow as a company that has a serious problem with acting ethically. Out of court settlements allow money to be exchanged despite clear demonstrations of inhumane behavior. Fines and settlements permit inexcusable violations of human rights. It is time that those responsible be charged with and tried for the crimes they commit; then and only then will corporate behavior be effectively transformed. Less offenses against human rights will occur when CEOs and high-paid execs have standing criminal charges and must serve time in jail.

work in progress.... much editing needed

jose cuervo, yes like the tequila. the american tourists would ask to see his license, buy him drinks and take photos to show off they had met a man with a familiar name. jose thought the whole thing was a farce, he had been named jose because both his mother's father and his father's father had been joses. jose was such a common name, as a child he had wanted a more unique name, a name that he could make all his. though his father's name,cuervo, he would carry until his body was buried under the hard-packed earth. As a man, he was proud to share the name of his ancestors. names were powerful. Shakespeare's "rose by any other name.." silly man had never met Rose. jose could not imagine her by another name. She was the woman he knew that God had intended he marry. She smiled and never grew bitter, despite all the pain he knew she had endured. Of the five children they had conceived only three had taken their first breath. And poor Rodrigo had never reached his third birthday. But there was Isabelle, their sweet five-year-old daughter and Manuello, who was now seven.
jose wondered how many arranged marriages were successful. He had been lucky to have married for love. Had his father been alive, he would have never permitted his son to marry a simple peasant's daughter with eight brothers and no land. He would have most likely tried to arrange for him to marry some political contact's daughter. But both his mother and father had been killed in the revolution, leaving him the estate and the fortune when he was ten. He had feared his father's intolerant nature. His father would often disappear for months at a time, and return with the stench of raw tobacco and liquor expecting a hot meal and his wife to attend to her marital duties. His mother never smiled the way Rose does. jose wondered if she would have run away had she not wanted her son to be a rich man's heir instead of a poor woman's bastard. after his birth, the doctor had said she was barren. Sad the word for her condition in Spanish is inuntil, useless.
Jose didn't believe a woman who couldn't bear children was useless. Lucy was not useless. After his parents died, Jose would sit along the riverbank to be alone and remember his youth. That was where Lucy found him crying. He wasn't embarrassed then to cry in front of a woman. Though, Lucy had only been three years his senior. She was as much a child then as she is now. She lived in an abandoned shed along the water. Everything made her happy. She spent her days collecting clay to paint with, picking flowers, and scrawling poetry in the mud with her fingers or her bare feet. Only several years ago, when Raul had asked Jose to speak to her as to why she would not marry him, had Jose been embarrassed to cry in front of her.
"Lucy, why have you denied Raul the joys of marriage to you," he had asked her.
"joselito, my brother, I have lied to you. I am not an orphan like you. When my mother died, my father expected me to take her place in the home; cooking, cleaning and to lie beside him at night. After several months, I ran away. I cannot have children and Raul deserves a son to carry his name. I am blessed to have Isabelle and Manuello as my niece and nephew but I could not permit Raul to destroy his rights to hold a child of his own in his arms."

jose had to fight the tears. poor lucy. how unfair life had been to her. Yet she herself did not seem upset.
"Doesn't it hurt you, Lucy?" he asked.
" It did once, long ago, but I have known for so long now. There are so many things in life to make me smile that I cannot cry about the things I cannot have."
How his father had not been able to see the strength behind a woman's smile, Jose could not fathom. He left Lucy admiring her spirit, hoping to one day be half as strong as she was.

Calcutta (work in progess)

Yanika was an ant under a child's looking glass in the sun. Burning. Desperate. In Pain.

She was a ten year old in the smoke filled, dung-scented darkness. She sang to herself a desolate song.

Momma made me get on Line

Red Light District hear my cry

This isn't the life that I would chose

Forced to follow in her high heeled shoes

I walk the streets

I walk the filthy streets

I give them what they want

and ask for

Money

I walk the streets

I walk the streets for rupees

Ancient men coughed dust and Ancient women shivered.

The night too black. The smoke too gray. Her lips too red.

Murmers, Snickers, buzzed past her as a swarm of angry mosquitoes.

Girls with streaming tears, don't get customers. Yanika studied the others. Thirty Lips too Red. Thirty pairs of Heels too high. Thirty sets of eyes that were too dry. Thirty bodies much too young. Thirty pockets too empty. They walked the streets. Each night. For Money. For Rupees. They smelled of sweat, of tears, of old beds and of the mud of poverty. Shadows of lowly men with pockets that Jingle. Shadows that seduced. Seduced Lips too Red and Heels too high. For Money. Money that was passed on to mothers. Too old. Too hurt. Too desperate.

Mothers that were once Lips too Red and Heels too high.

Fathers Too Stoned to Care for Lips too Red. Anymore. They stagger in and out of dingy hallways like one-legged men. They are broken men. Broken from the time European explorers conquered their lands, Broken from the time History was kept by pen and paper. Orthodox methods had been discarded, no longer were they recounting narratives for their beloved India. The world possessed its own dusty, yellow-paged, barely worn, account. Families too Fragmented. History, a broken mirror, could not be patched up to present the Truth.

Lips too Red and Heels too high were expected to finance the Fragmented Families. Broken men were dependent on their daughters to be seduced by Shadows in the smoke filled, dung-scented darkness. Walking the streets for Money. For Rupees. No matter how many times Lips too Red were obliged to work, Debt would never unleash the Fragmented Families of India. Debts that were owed to a British government after a long rule of tyranny. Debts owed from Fragmented Families comprised of Broken men, Mothers that were once Lips too Red and Heels too high and daughters to be seduced by Shadows in the smoke filled, dung-scented darkness.

With the same kind of concentration a medical student has on their first live scenario, Yanika stared into the mirror. If she looked hard enough, she hoped, she could dissect the person she is from the person she is not. She is not the bright, red lipstick. She is not the powdered face. She is not the streaming mascara that is in a race from her eyelashes, down her face, dripping off her cheek and finally to her pink sari. Girls with streaming tears don't get customers. She wants to see herself not as as the little girl that sleeps with men with leather skin and smell of must. Yet, the person she wished to see must have been hiding.
If only she could see beyond that heavy-painted adulthood, was a child who could finger-paint upon the night sky and dance between the raindrops. She was the sad, brown eyes. She was the salty tears that washed the ink from her face. She was the honey that dripped from the comb. She was the crescent moon and the smell of lilacs that sometimes hangs upon the cooling winds of spring. But nothing lasts. The bees die, the moon is reborn and the lilacs pass with the season. After the fist night of high heels and lipstick something inside of her perished not unlike the lilacs.

Immortal Clap

clap if you believe
romance isn't just for the naive
fairytales weren't created to deceive
they were for those who can retrieve
childhood desires and fantasies
the truth beyond the world we falsely perceive

if you think you know it all
you don't know nearly enough

down rabbit holes we will fall

things may never be as they seem
it all means nothing
if you won't let yourself dream
far far away is not a stupid destination
lose everything to imagination
use a golden loom
transform criticism and doom
let magic fill the room
Reality is more enchanting
than you assume

Opposition exists in every size
They will tell you fairytales are tragic lies
Not to let your heart be compromised
They look on with poisoned eyes

Grown cold
Infinitely Old
"Grow up,"
they will scold
Forgetting every secret ever told

Youth is wasted on minds so predisposed
to become disenchanted
who want believers to be recanted

The debate will commence
discard the nonsense

dissect the frog
bury the lamp
burn the flying carpet
lace fairy dust with Anthrax
demolish the castle
pillage the kingdom
rape the maiden
shatter the slipper
drain the well
damn once upon a time straight to hell

in their defense
they want something real
fairytales are delusions
is what they feel
a non-existant dessert to
unsatisfactory meal
oblivious they say
are those who get carried away

is it childish to have faith?
to possess ideals?
to live in a place where true love exists?
is it human to resist?
deny emotions and insist?

Poison my apple if you must
Speak of love versus lust
Tell me I'm mistaken
That it's a philosophy to be forsaken
You can't kill my pixies
not now or ever
I will clap forever

My Pain Is Stronger Than Your Pain

I know what it feels like
to have nothing
I know what it feels like
to lose everything
I know what it feels like
to suffer
I know what it feels like
to be heartbroken
I know what it feels like
to lose a dream
I know what it feels like
to be betrayed

Does it matter
if I was born
rich or poor?

Does it matter
what I scored on my SAT's?

Does it matter
if I paint?

Does it matter
if I write?

Or is pain
just pain?

Why is your pain
more valuable

more real
than mine?

Getting Past the Circus

She giggled to herself quietly. What had made her think such a ridiculous idea? She would have better luck finding a Black and Jewish lesbian Republican. So she settled the notion and stored it on the bookcase in the furthest-back part of her mind, forgetting her secret hope that he would change. Things eventually went back to the routine she was accustomed to: work, friends, nights snuggled up with a book and even the occasional date. Laughing over dinner or coffee with an attractive young man. Time well spent, she supposed, but she would most likely go into another fit of giggles contemplating "forever" or marriage. Marriage seemed as practical as purchasing a Victrola; an outdated contract, a world over before she could ever be a part of it.
Her generation was one of shallow obsession and commercialism. They fell in love with a new must-have gadget (cell phone, camera, mp3 player, computer and so forth) only to toss it aside for a newer, sleeker model several months later. What chance does a girl have in a world like that? What is the morale of a generation that is entirely dependent on having the newest, hottest, most-expensive gizmo? Old is obsolete, depleted of all value. How can they understand the concept of forever? Not exactly a word one comes across often in a manufacturer's guarantee. So, she resigned, took a deep breath, closed her eyes and silently said goodbye to fairytales.

Clenching her fists, she fights the fits of passion. Yet somehow that first heavy teardrop cascades down her cheek and it's too late. Her tear duct warden has been overthrown and they come out together in droves. Her fists have stopped fighting and she lets go. For what feels like a lifetime, she sits defeated. Should she throw in the towel? Forget hope, honesty or love? Is the world a place of only pain and cruelty?

Deep in the recesses of her eyes was an orange flicker. A sudden impulse as if she had just been caught ablaze. "No, " she told herself, "It's not over yet. As miserable as I will ever be, at some point I will once more be happy again."

It's a curious thing that the knowledge of life situations are temporary causes such conflicting reactions. In one scenario, she is torn by heartache that nothing lasts, not even love. In the next scenario, she is relieved that her pain will soon come to an end. It is no surprise that people are full of contradictions but perhaps that is merely because their behavior is a reflection of life itself.

The thought she tried to tuck away began to itch in the back of her mind. He was everything she despised: simple minded, arrogant, intolerant and selfish. His virtues were practically non-existant and his vices endless. He was wrong for her and she knew it.

But what if she was right for him? The one to show him unconditional, selfless love. She was about to laugh at herself again. For far too long, she had tried to break into the vault guarding his heart. Many times, his total disregard and lack of respect made her doubt the vault held anything more than empty space. She wanted someone who would do all the things that she would have done for him: take care of her when she was sick, spoil her with gifts when they could afford it, take her places and spend time with her family and friends. That nonsensical dream that he would wake up and realize that she she was his for the taking if he would change, drove her mad.

Her love was for someone who didn't exist. He would never be the man she deserved or wanted. This realization was a great disappointment. She had been certain that it was love and now, all of a sudden: she wasn't sure. How could something so real become fake in a matter of minutes? She had held a ripe fruit in her hands and bitten into hard wax. She was a child at the circus, eyes focused on the man in the glitter suit in the center ring, unaware of the deception and trickery. Her experiences had been a cheap con. All that wasted time was a shiny, sparkling succession of lies.

Heat built up under her eyelids, her body stiffened with anger, she had been a fool. Was the anger more concentrated on him or on herself? After all, she had been stupid enough to allow the hoax to occur. "Love." The thought made her sick. The itching subsided as did her interest in the matter. She now only felt slightly nauseous. The thought that had been earlier placed upon the bookcase was now tossed into a wastebasket in the depths of her mind. No time to dwell on such things. She had grown sick of illusions. It was then that she promised herself not to pay any mind to the ringleaders, despite how charming they might appear. It was her new quest to stray from distraction and seek truth. A new chance to find something real that wouldn't leave her in the dark looking for the trapdoor, hidden mirror or strings. Something that didn't leave her with the taste of wax.

Jason Kronenwald
has a series of portraits entitled "Gum Blondes"
www.gumblondes.com
All his work is done on plywood
and painted entirely out of gum!

plastic
people
painted
in
bubblegum

simply brilliant.