I wonder if the Japanese company would have been as cavalier about Japanese lives? I wonder if an American company would have been so cavalier about American lives.
This is an argument against free trade. Multinationals might not be as concerned about the well-being of their customers, suppliers and workers.
LAT:
Faced with superbug outbreaks in three countries by early 2013, Japanese device giant Olympus Corp. told U.S. executives not to issue a broad warning to American hospitals about potentially deadly infections from tainted medical scopes, internal emails show…
All told, at least 35 people at U.S. hospitals have died since 2013 – three of them at UCLA’s Ronald Reagan Medical Center – after suffering infections from contaminated gastrointestinal scopes manufactured by Olympus, according to hospitals and public health officials.
Olympus’ actions – and inaction – are being closely examined in lawsuits by American patients and their families who contend that the manufacturer was negligent and might have prevented the outbreaks and deaths had it been more forthcoming. In addition, federal prosecutors are investigating Olympus’ handling of the infections – and the emails could become crucial evidence in any future case.
The company’s internal emails reveal conflicts inside Olympus over how to respond to a growing threat to patient safety, pitting U.S. executives against their superiors in Japan who had the final say. The emails were filed in a Pennsylvania court this month as part of a patient lawsuit and obtained by Kaiser Health News working in collaboration with the Los Angeles Times.
Olympus, which controls 85% of the U.S. market for gastrointestinal scopes, declined to comment on the emails, citing the pending litigation. It also declined to discuss the ongoing investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey.
