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The Role of Pharmaceutical Companies and Access to HIV Treatment in the Developing World

by Democracy Now (repost)
We look at the issue of H.I.V and AIDS by examining the role of pharmaceutical companies and access to treatment. Last week, the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution that would increase pressure on companies, governments and the WHO to reform the system for producing and distributing drugs in developing nations.
We look at the issue of H.I.V and AIDS by examining the role of pharmaceutical companies and access to treatment. Last week, the World Health Assembly which is the decision making body of the World Health Organization, met in Geneva and adopted a resolution which would increase pressure on companies, governments and the WHO to reform the system for producing and distributing drugs in developing nations.

Health ministers at the meeting were responding to criticisms from NGOs and developing countries that transnational pharmaceutical companies focus on research and development on diseases prevalent in affluent countries to the neglect of poor nations.

A report by the Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health released in advance of the Geneva meeting, stated that the existing system of research and development "has not yet produced the results hoped for, or even expected for the people of developing countries." The report goes on to say that drugs are priced too high and that there is no incentive to research treatments for the developing world where the need is great but profits are low."

We host a debate on the issue.

* Jamie Love, director of the Consumer Project on Technology.
* Mark Grayson, deputy vice-president of The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America or PHRMA.
* Sipho Mthathi, General Secretary of the Treatment Action Campaign which is a South African AIDS activist organization.

LISTEN ONLINE:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/01/1359208
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