Brazil: Patents versus Patients
Duration: 11'42" minutes
Reporter: Julia Black
Producers: Julia Black and Lisa Russell
Executive Producer: Richard Fabb
In the midst of the global AIDS crisis, Brazil is leading the fight against pharmaceutical companies for affordable treatment. Since 1993 Brazil has legally side-stepped international patents, producing and freely distributing AIDS medication through the health care system. With free access to Anti Retro-Viral drugs, AIDS related deaths in Brazil have plummeted by 50 %. Brazil's lead now presents an ethical challenge to the rest of the world, placing patient's rights in stark competition with patent rights and multinational profits.
For Flavio Pontes, Brazil's radical policy has meant the difference between life and death. When he first contracted HIV at the age of 20, he fled to London, believing that he only had five years to live. Today Flavio's death sentence has been lifted, along with 90,000 other AIDS patients currently benefiting from free medication.
Due to a loophole in international trade agreements Brazil now manufactures 8 of the 12 AIDS drugs in state run factories at greatly reduced cost. It is becoming a major threat to the pharmaceutical industry. If multinationals do not lower their prices, Brazil is threatening to produce 2 more of the AIDS medications. As Dr. Eloan Pinheiro, of the Brazilian Institute of Drug Technology, explains "they are currently using the ownership of the patent to inflate the cost of these drugs."
Drug companies argue that their prices reflect their investment in research and development, but Brazil's lead is generating increasing interest from other developing nations who are now experiencing the apocalyptic death rates once predicted for Brazil.
Brazil now stands at a critical cross-roads. If prices do not fall, they will feel morally obliged to export the technology and generic drugs. Giving patient rights priority over patent rights would set an international precedent. However the question is will Brazil be given the international support it needs to transfer their success to other countries in crisis.
|
