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March 23, 2005
Due to Today's Developments, Tens of Millions of People Not-Named Terri Schiavo May Die
Here's a real issue for anyone genuinly interested in a life-affirming culture. In order to comply with World Trade Organization requirements, India is moving towards ending its production of affordable generic drug production.
NEW DELHI (AP) -- International aid groups slammed India's passage on Wednesday of a new patent law that ends the decades-old practice of allowing domestic drug companies to make low-cost copies of expensive Western medicines, saying millions of poor people across the world will be affected.The changes in patent rights stem from India's membership in the World Trade Organization, which enhances the country's participation in global trade but requires it to enforce stricter patent rules for its US$5 billion (euro3.8 billion) pharmaceutical industry.
International aid groups said the new law will curb the supply of cheap generic drugs to impoverished nations, threatening the survival of AIDS and cancer patients there.
Some 50 percent of 700,000 HIV patients taking antiretroviral medicines in Africa, Asia and Latin America rely on low-cost drugs from India. A month's dose of a generic AIDS drug cocktail costs US$30 (euro22), or 5 percent of similar drugs sold by Western producers.
"Because India is one of the world's biggest producers of generic drugs, this law will have a severe knock-on effect on many developing countries which depend on imported generic drugs from India," said Samar Verma, regional policy adviser at Oxfam International.
The Paris-based Doctors Without Borders described the Indian move as "the beginning of the end of affordable generics."
Multinational drug companies welcomed the decision.
It's hard to express how maddeningly sad this development is. India itself has 5.1 million HIV-positive people. There are tens of millions of people around the world that are not receiving these life-saving medicines mostly because of their prohibitive cost. If this proceeds in a manner that continues to please the pharmaceutical companies, the suffering will be immense. The death toll will continue to increase.
Will we care?
Posted by zeynep at March 23, 2005 04:06 PM
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Comments
Drugs seem to be only one plan of the USofA. Get rid of the Poor, the Old, the Sick, etc., in other words get rid of all plans
that would help or benefit the Poor and the Working Class+
Don
Posted by: Don Kiernan at March 23, 2005 05:44 PM
My chest clenches at the thought of all those thousands of people who will not get the drugs they need; simply because Western companies dont want cheap competition. The corrupt and amoral institutions such as WTO are squeezing the developing world, and any group that is in need, to obtain any and all possible profits. The entire ordeal sickens me, as it should any sane person. This is why we must come together, for the good of all people, to stop the destruction and chaos, to bring about a lasting change to our global world, in which people are put ahead of profits, and all can live in a secure and peaceful environment.
Posted by: RevolutionSolution at March 24, 2005 08:46 PM
Some of us will care and will act to do what we can to improve the situation. Others will see the situation as inevitable or natural or something and will do nothing. An unfortunately influential segment of the population, however, will see it as a positive development, as they feel, in the words of my late, Exxon executive father, that "there's too many of those people anyway." It does often seem that these sorts of policies are designed to wipe out the dark-skinned. The U.S. bombing of the al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan in the late 90s seems a part of this whole picture too, despite the pretext.
Posted by: deang at March 24, 2005 10:00 PM
Whether we care or not, we will all continue to heavily subsidize the very ham-fisted pharmaceutical companies which deny those most in need of these and other life-saving medications.
The rich essentially use everyone's tax dollars to ensure they get the best treatments while everyone else is left to suffer and die.
It's enough to make me wish I believed in Hell.
Posted by: Arvin Hill at March 25, 2005 12:14 AM
Listen to the free-trade fundamentalists on this subject to fully get the point.
"The free-market principle is to secure benefit sharing through contracts between the companies that demand genetic resources and the countries, peoples or individuals that supply these resources. The buyer and the seller can freely negotiate the terms of the contract, which ensures that both parties are satisfied."
The buyer and seller can freely negotiate...
http://www.techcentralstation.com/033105F.html
In my opinion you can argue for protection of intellectual property rights even in the case of medicines but not when implying that the free market will take care of any problem because you can find strong generic and theoretical arguments for the economical superiority of the free market in the long run.
While millions of adults and children die.
I could accept enforcing stricter patent rules when they would be accompanied with extension of programs (of subsidizing) to supply the poor with cheap medicine.
Posted by: Frans Groenendijk at April 6, 2005 08:08 PM