Brazil in the news: AIDS
President Lula has given the green light to let Brazil manufacture a generic AIDS drug whose patent originally belongs to the American pharmaceutical industry Merck & Co. The "compulsory license" allows the country to buy or produce the AIDS drug efavirenz at a smaller price, and although there had been threats to bypass drug patents before, this is the first time it has been done here.
Read more about the issue in this article published in the New York Times. What do you think? Is the Brazilian government right in breaking Merck's patent?
3 comments:
Hi Blog,
It is hard to comment if we dont know the numbers behind Lula's decision, but we point some questions:
1. Will this decision decrease future investments in medicine technology in Brazil?
I dont know, companies and future will tell us.
2. Is ''Between our business and our health, we are going to take care of our health,'' Lula, a nice and dangerous speech?
Yes. People will love it, and go back to question 1.
Lets hope Brazilian government has taken the right decision in long term path, not only for the actual government.
Cheers, Ronaldo
Yes, Ronaldo, this looks like the beginning of a long battle... There are many issues involved, and let's just hope that the most important characters in this story - the AIDS patients - will really be everybody's top priority.
I totally agrre, Monica! Lets hope AIDS patients are the first priority!
Post a Comment