Yeah, Bayer's gonna see their reputation fade a bit, especially after their past classic hits, including but not limited to Heroin; Slave Labor, Human Experimentation, and Investments in Human Poison During the Holocaust and The World War: Pt II; as well as Intentionally Spreading HIV in Asia: Nobody's Gonna Give a Shit.
When it comes to existing companies that've had intentionally tremendously horrible effects on humanity, it's hard to think of any worse than Bayer.
"(Bayer's) Cutter (Laboratories) misrepresented the results of its own research and sold the contaminated AHF to overseas markets in Asia and Latin America without the precaution of heat treating the product recommended for eliminating the risk. As a consequence, hemophiliacs who infused the HIV-contaminated Factor VIII and IX tested positive for HIV and developed AIDS."
After it was revealed that their products were infected and had to be recalled, they realized they could make some cash by just selling it in countries without easy access to western media reports at the time. And Bayer being Bayer, they did it. [1]
To be clear, doing something while disregarding a high chance of a side-effect is not the same as intentionally doing something. The reality is bad enough, no need to misrepresent it.
If you deliberately loaded a single round into a revolver, spun the cylinder and then put the gun against your neighbors head and pulled the trigger, would that not be murder in the 1-in-6 chance that your neighbors brains were blown out? Wouldn't you be a murderer for even playing that 'game', despite the stochastic nature of it?
> Wouldn't you be a murderer for even playing that 'game', despite the stochastic nature of it?
Maybe, depending on the definition of murder we go by. At a minimum, it's manslaughter. The point is, that describes a factual state, not intent (again, depending on whether you are using murderer to describe intent).
Whether someone kills someone, or someone purposefully kills someone are differentiated by intent. The original assertion was "Intentionally Spreading HIV in Asia". Their intent was to make money, that was a horrible, and avoidable byproduct of that intent. There's no need to make this sound worse than it is, because it's already horrible. I'm not defending Bayar, I'm calling out an inaccurate statement.
Selling the blood was pulling the trigger, both done with intent. Whether that action would result in a death was unknown to them in the strict sense, but they knew there was significant risk. Frankly my example is probably being generous to Bayer since I'd wager the combined probability in the case of Bayer was greater than 1/6.
Whether you want to split hairs over manslaughter or murder doesn't interest me. Anybody who 'plays' Russian roulette with their neighbor is a depraved psychopath who belongs behind bars at the very least. If you played Russian roulette with your neighbor because I offered you $20 to do it, having a monetary motivation wouldn't make you any less a murderer.
> but they knew there was significant risk. Frankly my example is probably being generous to Bayer since I'd wager the combined probability in the case of Bayer was greater than 1/6.
So, what exactly is the percentage of risk that makes it intentional?
Listen, Bayer did a horrible thing, and while it clearly hasn't been proved here that it's intentional, as that word has an actual definition which is not met here, it's definitely criminally negligent to an unbelievable degree.
All I'm saying is there's no need to start using labels that don't apply or trying to change the meaning of words just to make it sound worse. Language is only as useful as it is clear.
There is a real negative effect in using hyperbole to describe the misdeeds of others. The inaccuracy allows them wiggle room to supply carefully worded denials that are true, in reality if not in spirit.
For example, if a defender of Bayer were here, they could say "Bayer did not intentionally spread HIV in Asia" and they would not be lying, even if they are skirting the issue and relying on a technicality. This allows for third parties to be confused, and the issue to be muddied.
The overreaching of the original statement allows for this type of denial, whereas a more specific statement about the facts would not. For example, the statement "Bayer repurposed goods that were not correctly sterilized from HIV that it knew would be too risky to use in first world markets to Asian markets, resulting in thousands of hemophiliacs that used the drugs to become HIV positive. When problems started occurring, Bayer assured health officials that the product was safe."
As a side-effect, in trying to make sure the statement is actually correct and accurate, it may lead the people making it to look closer at the issue, and realize it's not necessarily as cut-and-dry as that (as I just did), while still being plenty bad.
One final note: I, and I'm sure many others, use imprecise and accusatory language such as used in the original comment as a red flag to identify people pushing an agenda (even if that agenda is outrage to drive views). When I just searched this issue, I came across a result that said "Bayer deliberately infected asians and latinos with HIV." That's the kind of wording that's meant to spark outrage (as indeed there should be), but outrage without information (because there can't be much or it would discredit the title), which is never useful. When people use language such as that accidentally, they should be gently corrected (as I attempted to do). When they do it on purpose, they should be ignored or scorned, as they are trying to manipulate you.
What? Yes it is, if you know that X -> Y and you do X, you are responsible for Y. It doesn't matter weather Y was the raison du jour or not. A contract killer isn't suddenly off the hook for first degree murder just because their motivator was to make money.
Responsible, yes. That doesn't mean intent. I'm not claiming Bayer isn't responsible, just that there is a difference between being horrible in the pursuit of money, and being horrible because you actually want harm to come to those people. One makes you responsible for death and destruction, the other puts you in the same category as the Nazis, who intentionally tried to eradicate the Jews.
It wasn't just some bad batch. Factor VIII concentrate required large amounts of human blood plasma to produce, had no real substitute, and was inherently going to be infected once the HIV virus became widespread. It wasn't even certain at the time that the new sterilization procedure was effective against AIDS.
There's some serious questions about how decisions were made under crisis conditions, and particularly about the culture of hiding information from patients in the medical community (even in the west) in order to "prevent panic", "for their own good", etc. but it's hard to fight a culture of lying with more lies.
They knew it was infected. That's the reason they recalled it in financially significant territories.
They continued to sell it for a full year after that point. Accidents happen, but intentionally taking your product out of one market that declares it dangerous and dumping it on another--for a period extending one year--isn't an accident. It's a very intentional, shortsighted move to minimize losses.
I believe they meant consequences from the affected localities to Bayer. The point being that while it was immoral and disgusting, it may not have been short-sighted for their own selfish interests.
When it comes to existing companies that've had intentionally tremendously horrible effects on humanity, it's hard to think of any worse than Bayer.