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August 25, 2004
Could You Patent the Sun?
After it became known that the field trials had ended in success for Jonas Salk's polio vaccine, journalist Edward R. Murrow interviewed Salk on "See It Now." "Who owns the patent on this vaccine?" Murrow asked. "Well, the people, I would say," Dr. Salk replied. "There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?"
Sad news today on polio. Patent barriers may not be the problem here, unlike for the biggest killer in Africa, HIV/AIDS, but rather warfare, lack of funds and inattention:
Polio has spread to two more African countries that had been freed of the crippling disease, threatening to become a major epidemic across West and Central Africa, the World Health Organization said yesterday. The disease begins reaching its high season next month.The spread of polio to Guinea and Mali brings to 12 the number of previously polio-free African countries that have experienced an outbreak of the disease since January 2003. It also deals yet another serious setback to the agency's efforts to eradicate the disease by year's end.
...
As of Aug. 24, there were 602 polio cases worldwide, of which 476, or 79 percent, are in Nigeria. Ninety percent of the world's cases are in Africa, where all but two countries - Nigeria and Niger - had been freed of polio by the end of 2002.
The number of polio cases might reach 1,000 in Nigeria this year, Dr. Aylward said, and it could take a full year of work to get it to zero.
In addition to Guinea and Mali, the countries to which polio has spread from Nigeria are: Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Sudan and Togo.
I knew that the goal was to eradicate it at the end of the year. It would have been one bright spot in a pretty dismal year, to be able to say that in 2004 humanity eradicated polio, 24 years after small pox. It's all very sad, especially considering immunity is lifelong, and the vaccine inexpensive.
Posted by zeynep at August 25, 2004 01:16 AM
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Part of the problem in Nigeria is the number of states run by Muslim fanatics (and I'm not one who thinks all Muslims are fanatics; I use the term advisedly) who banned the vaccinations, claiming that Americans were trying to infect them with AIDS and/or sterilize them.
And one reason they might think so is that drug companies use Africans as guinea pigs, for example testing a new meningitis drug in Nigeria without telling the subjects of the risks.
Your post caused me to revisit one of my old posts, from 2000 (http://whateveritisimagainstit.blogspot.com/2000/02/greece-is-still-trying-to-pressure.html), about Eflornithine, a drug which treats sleeping sickness, which is an African disease and, hence unprofitable, so they stopped making it. Repeat, STOPPED MAKING IT. And then it went back into production, as a Google search shows, when it was discovered that it also eliminates facial hair in women. It's all about priorities.
Posted by: WIIIAI at August 25, 2004 03:34 PM
The link seemed not to work but I searched your page for Eflornithine, which popped up this page that did work.
http://whateveritisimagainstit.blogspot.com/2000/02/greece-is-still-trying-to-pressure.html
Hmm, that looks the same as the above non-working link. In any case, here is the relevant paragraph from your blog:
"And the good news from the pharmaceutical industry is that Eflornithine may go into production again. It cures sleeping sickness, an especially nasty disease that unfortunately for them, only effects poor people in Africa. So no one's made it since 1999. But since it also eliminates facial hair in rich white women, there's now a market that the industry cares about. How'd you like to explain that one to the Africans?"
Thanks much for the information. What can I say? What is there to say?
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