bayer was (is?) a cartoonishly evil corporation

[Bob]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=wg-52mHIjhs

basically at some point in the 80's (i think) bayer had a drug that they knew was tainted with HIV (because people had died of AIDS from it), and it was banned in the US because of that. however, despite the fact that they knew for certain that this drug was tainted with HIV and had actually given people HIV and would continue to give people HIV who used it in the future (there are apparently documents proving this) they sold the drug in europe and asia where, I believe, people died of AIDS as a result.

capitalists are the worst people

[afronaut]

I'm really interested in what a laissez-fair capitalist would have to say to this.

Completely ridiculous.

[TurdBerglar]

how the fuck does aspirin get contaminated with HIV

[Bob]

i don't think it was, it was some blood transfusion something or other

[silence7]

Oh, they were evil alright.......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer
Bayer became part of IG Farben, a conglomerate of German chemical industries which formed the financial core of the Nazi regime. IG Farben owned 42.5% of the company that manufactured Zyklon B[citation needed], a chemical used in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. During World War II the company extensively used slave labour in factories attached to German concentration camps, notably the sub-camps of the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp[3]. When the Allies split IG Farben after World War II for involvement in several Nazi war crimes, Bayer reappeared as an individual business. Bayer executive Fritz ter Meer, sentenced to seven years in prison by the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, was made head of the supervisory board of Bayer in 1956, after his release.

Here for more info on Bayer....
http://www.ahrp.org/infomail/05/01/27a.php

[ms.peachy]

Can someone please tell me exactly how upset I should be about this thing that apparently happened over 20 years ago, by some company that was owned by Germans during WWII?

[Dorothy Wood]

I've never taken aspirin my whole life. I kind of wanted to crush it up and rub it on me though, since they say that's good for bee stings. but I've only been stung by a bee once, while playing basketball outside in the fall. totally random. got between my hand and the ball. I was in 6th grade. first and last time. no aspirin paste though. darn it.

[Dorothy Wood]

so, I watched that. and I don't like the way those guys talk. they're like yelling. and the looped footage of bayer buildings made me dizzy.

[b-grrrlie]

I've been avoiding all these big corporate products as far as I can.
I never could take aspirin anyway (and there's much better ache priducts anyway).
Sometimes it's difficult to know which company owns whom, as especially here in Scandinavia they are all intertwined.
Luckily now Fazer and Malaco divorced so they can keep on doing each whichever they were best at.
Sometimes you gotta look for the small print in the packages to find the real owners, if they've even printed.
I've had to avoid loads of catfood as half of the brands are owned by Nestlé.
Luckily my cats prefer the Swedish homecat's food! :p

[Bob]

Can someone please tell me exactly how upset I should be about this thing that apparently happened over 20 years ago, by some company that was owned by Germans during WWII?

because they're still around and they've never really been held accountable for it, i guess?

they knowingly sold aids to people in order to make money. because it happened 20 years ago, it's ok? there's a statute of limitations on moral outrage?

anyway i didn't really post this to rile people up and charge bayer HQ with pitchforks or anything, i just found it interesting, that's all. whenever people go on about corporations being evil people tend to just kind of roll their eyes and say "yes yes rich people are bad" but oh hey, this is actually a corporation being legitimately evil, and i think that's interesting and worth posting about

20 years ago isn't even that long of a time

[Documad]

I've never taken aspirin my whole life. I kind of wanted to crush it up and rub it on me though, since they say that's good for bee stings. but I've only been stung by a bee once, while playing basketball outside in the fall. totally random. got between my hand and the ball. I was in 6th grade. first and last time. no aspirin paste though. darn it.

When I was growing up, all we had was Bayer aspirin. They were probably ineffective because we had the same bottle for my whole childhood. It was a clear glass bottle with lots of tiny pills in it. My mom gave me a crushed up aspirin a couple of times during my childhood. (I didn't learn to swallow pills till I was about 16). We never had children's medicine and my mom didn't like pills so I had to have a bad fever to get an aspirin. No medicine for headaches or other pains.

When my mom was in her late 60s and the doctor recommended Advil for her broken rib she couldn't take it. I finally tried it in my late 20s. Mom and I both threw up immediately when we tried to take it.