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Sanctions Against Russia Perhaps Haven’t Slowed the Economy As Much As Many Hoped
But necessary medicine is not making it into the country, and many suffer.
People get sick, and people need medicine. Russia doesn’t make medicine. It makes sub-par knock-offs that are more “placebo” than actual healing properties because someone somewhere from 1992 to today found it in his economic interest to cheat the Russian consumer. All he had to do was grease some palms, and the Russian government, as with everything else, looked the other way while proclaiming the excellence of Russian medicaments.
Every Russian over 30 understands this formula for survival in Russia. If you need anything more potent than an aspirin, and it wasn’t produced in some other country or at a foreign-owned plant inside of Russia, then you don’t buy it because the medicine could do more harm than good. This is what has happened to my wife’s aunt. She was diagnosed in her twenties with a rare form of diabetes that, when not controlled by medication, results in schizophrenic breaks with reality.
The first incident occurred after her English fiance moved back to England and disappeared. It turned out he was murdered. The stress and heartbreak brought on her first bout of the illness. Everyone thought she was acting out because…
