Bending Big (Intellectual Property Rights, Disease and Vaccines)

[nosmokes]

a good thing.

original-deccanherald

Bending big

By D Ravi Kanth

The lead taken by Indonesia at WHA is a step towards ending monopoly of the US.

Never before did the World Health Assembly (WHA) witness such fierce battles as this year. It is the highest decision-making body to oversee global health. The 60th WHA session, which ended last Thursday would be remembered as a turning point when developing countries came voiced their concern about lack of proper institutional arrangements to share biological resources and addressing public health, innovation and intellectual property issues. Faced with stiff opposition from the United States, known for consistently opposing public health to prevail over the primacy attached for strong intellectual property rights (IPR), the developing countries notched some important gains.
Until now, the WHA sessions were dominated by health issues over which the US would set the agenda. Given the predominant role played by the so-called research-based pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer, Merck, in influencing the health agenda in the US, Washington invariably turned a deaf ear to public health problems in poor countries. Despite a rising disease burden due to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in many developing countries, the US would always insist that nothing should be done to undermine the stranglehold of IPRs on access to affordable medicines. It always maintained that if IPRs are weakened, research-based companies would not plough billions of dollars to discover new medicines. What is the use if there are drugs to tackle the killer diseases but patients cannot get them on time — is the argument advanced by health pressure groups world over.
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complete article here

[elehhhhna]

1. It is rumored that Bill Gates gives so much $$$ to Aids drug companies

for use in Africa b/c he has a HUGE stake in keeping patent & IP law very, very strong globally...and if IP law is ignored for the sake of providing cheap, life-saving drugs, all international IP laws will be under fire.

Altruism at its best.

[TZ]

2. Gates also is funding research on Malaria vaccines

and money to pay for mosquito netting and other malarial preventive treatments--they GIVE away meds in Africa. He also AHEM is giving money to fight TB in Africa as well. None of this stuff is anyway going to be profitable anytime soon. In fact the research on Malaria is so complex it would be a long time before he would see any "returns" on his profit. The Gates foundation sponsers research on the three biggest killers in the world..AIDS, malaria, and , TB. Without this money very little of the research going on here and in Africa would be possible.
Whatever you BELIEVE to be his motivations the Gates foundation is doing very very good and lifesaving work.

[nosmokes]

3. yeah, i'm not nearly so enamoured of the gates foundation as many seem

to be. while i'm pretty sure they mean well, i simply don't buy into the premise that capitalism can solve the problems that capitalism created. they're already pushing for a *green* revolution for africa which is as destined for failure as the one here is provingh to be, when there are studies piling up on each other showing showing that local farmers growing sustainably with bio intensive/organic methods is cheaper and much easier to get started and maintain locally. it creates a stable local economy and can provide the basic building block for long term prosperity and an infrastructure that is appropriate for the technology and power available. the problem is that the profits aren't aren't humongous and they stay local for the most part, neither of which appeals to wall street that believes actually working for a living is a sin.