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Health for Sale - The Problem of Poverty and Drugs
Janis Zeckai (left) interviews Alessandro Rossi, director of «Health for Sale».
Top 5 infection diseases that kill the most people every year
Various forms of palmary diseases: 4 Mio. deaths
HIV/AIDS: 2.8 Mio. deaths
Diarrhea: 1.8 Mio. deaths
Tuberculosis: 1.6 Mio. deaths
Malaria: 1.6 Mio. deaths
85% of the people suffering from these diseases are living in the southern hemisphere.
Data according to 2004
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The film «Health for Sale», which was directed by Michele Mellara and Alessandro Rossi from Mammut Film, portrays the issue of a lacking amount of drugs in developing countries. It also investigates the economic and political interests behind the distribution of the most essential pharmaceutical drugs in the world.
«Health for Sale» deals with the economic and political interests that exist behind the access to the world’s most essential pharmaceutical drugs.
The companies shown in this film are supplying the developing countries with medicine. Often the drugs made by these companies are patented. This means a company that is selling the product has the complete commercial rights. Therefore it has complete control within their market sector. The profits made from selling a patented medication can be enormous in relation to profits made from selling generic medicine, because the patent holder can set the price of patented products as high as he wants to.
This makes it impossible for the part of the population of a country with a lower GDP per capita (gross domestic product per head) to afford their essential pharmaceutical treatment. Especially the extremely poor population of e.g. parts of Africa is suffering under the missing of lifesaving medication. To fix the lack of affordable drugs, specialists propose two main solutions. Either pharmaceutical multinationals lower their prices or competition among different companies has to be encouraged by abandoning the use of patents.
Unfortunately at the moment none of the given options is very likely to be implemented, because in order to achieve satisfactory results, governments and pharmaceutical enterprises have to be willing to cooperate.
Some improvement of the situation has emerged as parallel imports were introduced. Say, patented drugs are sold in one country at a high price (A). Comparative drugs are produced in another country for a relative cheap price (B), without hurting the patent. Then the cheaper drugs are imported into the first country and sold at a price which usually lies between A and B. That is a possible option to lower the prices of drugs in developing countries so a bigger percentage of the population can afford them.
According to Alessandro Rossi, director of the film, only 11%-14% of the total income of pharmaceutical multinationals is spend on the development of new medication. When asked about why this proportion is so shockingly small, his answer is very simple: Multinationals are obviously only interested in spending money on development with the prospect on return on these investments. In developing countries however a big percentage of the population has a low GDP per capita. Since they are not able to buy much, the profit which is made from selling drugs there, is of course limited.
Expectations are high on this new project, where a non-profit health organization collaborates with a pharmaceutical enterprise. They have developed a malaria treatment which only costs 1$ per pill and which will be patent free. As a consequence every company has the possibility to produce and improve the drug. Whether this project will be successful can not be said yet.
It remains to be seen if, how, and when the dispute between governments of the developing world and pharmaceutical multinationals is going to be resolved. Clear is that compromises must be found. Above that, involved organizations need to start realizing that this is not about money. It is about the lives of millions and that simple fact makes this issue so fundamentally important. (baz.ch/Newsnet)
Erstellt: 01.02.2009, 17:37 Uhr
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