Soviet Drug Shortage

Regarding the pharmaceutical crisis in the Soviet Union (Column One, Oct. 18):

It seems a bizarre state of affairs, indeed, when both the know-how and the raw ingredients exist to create pharmaceutical products, yet a vast number of people in a huge geographical arena go without basic medicines.

It is also bizarre that hunger coexists with large surpluses of food and that homelessness is a protracted condition for millions, while one-third of the construction force (in the U.S.) is out of work at any given time.

What is it that keeps these bizarre phenomena in place? Isn’t it about time that we (all thinking people concerned with minimizing suffering while maximizing survival) begin to make a sincere analysis and application of what is called for in order to keep Lifeboat Earth afloat in the cosmic sea?

BEN MILES

Huntington Beach