The Love that keeps on giving

  • by: |
  • 01/29/2007
Jamie -- you still haven't explained why a country with no primary health care system, with a growth rate of 6 percent per quarter and a medical tourism industry has to rip off patents (and your interpetation of the Blackberry case is novel to say the least..but then you have way of leaving out the context of situations to assert that something was compulsory licensing -- more research for me--) For every case you cite there is another view or another ruling. And you -- as you often do -- mix up arguments.

My point about Gleevec was the availabiliy of competent oncologists. And in any event, once you start confiscating patents you kill innovation so there's no Gleevec like drugs...Your prize idea is nice if you want to reward an idea but you vastly underestimate the risk and unpredictabiity of drug development, the cost of PM surveillance, the investment of follow on research, the need for industry and VC support of pre-clinical work, investment in new genomic based tools....

A proliferation of AIDS drugs manufactured by Asian pharmaceutical companies and the lack of controls for quality or delivery could create drug-resistant strains of HIV, warns a Treat Asia report made available to the New York Times. Treat Asia is a network of clinics, hospitals and research institutions sponsored by the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmfAR). Only three companies out of at least 27 Asian firms that are producing HIV drugs meet World Health Organization quality standards, though these drugs are increasingly available in Asia and abroad, said Treat Asia. The drugs made by the 24 other companies have either not been reviewed or have not met WHO standards.

In addition, there are too few qualified doctors trained to prescribe and monitor the use of the drugs, Treat Asia said. China has fewer than 200 doctors to treat its 840,000 people with HIV. In Thailand, 100 doctors are trained to treat AIDS - one for every 6,700 patients. Thailand has exported $3 million in HIV drugs, yet it has 84,000 HIV-positive citizens who are not receiving treatment.

When China offered free treatment to 5,000 HIV patients recently, 20-40 percent stopped taking the drugs due to a lack of counseling and combinations that caused side effects, said the group. Elsewhere, many patients are left with "little or no instruction on the safe and proper use of antiretroviral drugs," the report said.

"Our point is if there is proliferation of the generic drugs, as many are calling for, where is the
infrastructure to deliver them?" said Kevin Robert Frost, report co-author and a public health worker in Bangkok for Treat Asia.

Treat Asia - which called for the creation of a regional database to help determine which drugs are available where - will make the report available beginning Sunday on its Web site: www.treatasia.org.

I also provide the link to the US Pharmacopeia report on the poor quality of generic version of drugs in Thailand...produced at the request of the President's AIDS program, the one you and I support...

http://www.uspdqi.org/pubs/other/ANEReview.pdf

You are living in the 1980s... and you have cast your lot with the parasites as opposed to the producers of better health.
CMPI

Center for Medicine in the Public Interest is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization promoting innovative solutions that advance medical progress, reduce health disparities, extend life and make health care more affordable, preventive and patient-centered. CMPI also provides the public, policymakers and the media a reliable source of independent scientific analysis on issues ranging from personalized medicine, food and drug safety, health care reform and comparative effectiveness.

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