400-500 case

In the film, Fire In the Blood, the producer's main points that were pushed across were the effectiveness the United States government and large pharmaceutical companies have on the health of others in the world. This film especially looked into the harm of patents on anti-retroviral medicines large pharmaceutical companies hold on the world. Due to this hundreds of thousands of people were dying because they couldn't afford/access the medications they needed. Furthermore, until the year of 1996, the first effective treatment was available in curing HIV around the world. When taking a combination of these three medications, within two weeks the person's strength comes back. It was estimated that around per patient it would be $15,000 for the medication alone. This caused complications to developing countries as the majority of their people could not afford this. There was then a push to create generic versions of these drugs. It would be the same compounds in curing aids, but at a fraction of the cost. However, the patents on these specific drugs would not allow this. Some reasons many activists and the United States government would not allow this is because: if there were cheaper drugs in Africa it would discourage R&D, there was the belief of treating people in developing countries would cause the virus to mutate and could then pass off into the west, and lastly cause a miss use of the medicines provided. Many of these developing country governments were then forced to back off of challenging drug patents in fear of severe consequences. When a leading chemist of India created a generic version of these drugs, at a fraction of the cost, the people's lives were projected to change. However, as patent laws were still in effect these drugs were highly illegal. Many people were getting these drugs by luck, not choice. Everything changed when the health scare of Anthrax hit the west. This Cited a public health emergency, a valid and legal cause on suspending a patent on a drug called Cipro. The United States government forced these big pharmaceutical companies to push the prices of Cipro down, threatening the ending of the patent on drugs in Africa. Numerous other African countries made use of the “public health emergency” exemptions to allow the importation of generic ARVs. The Bush administration agreed to spend their money on generic made medicines, then the TRIPS agreement denied them access to affordable medication causing a relapse in the affordability of these antiretrovirals. 

 

This film relates to concepts in class because of the legacies of “health is a commodity that should be delivered within a market context.” (Ryan, Lecture 5.3). This is shown how the western pharmaceutical corporations are marking up the prices of these antiretrovirals to get as much money as possible. Another example this film relates to is course concepts is the statement the World Bank speaks about health care. “Health care has to be affordable and effective.” (Ryan, Lecture 5.3). This raises the question of why the World Bank didn’t have more of involvement during these times, including in the creation of the policy TRIPS.

 

As a personal reaction, this film was extremely frustrating. I thought it was completely disgusting how western pharmaceutical companies have completely monopolized these types of drugs. As a result, there has been an extreme amount of blood on their hands. This is completely their fault, as I believe the health of a person is a human right. When watching this, it completely changed my view on patents of medications. Who should tell another country what they can and can't do if it's best for their people. This aspect is disgusting to me as people are still struggling in these very similar situations with other diseases.