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New video - Will Trudeau make this very bad drug deal?

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Published on Monday, 14 March 2016 10:00
Written by editor

SHD Dear PAOV,

I’m writing you today to share a new video we’ve made. First though, I’d like to share a story which explains why I think this video is so important.

Nine years ago I met a woman who forever changed the way I thought about health.

I was working with a medical program that supported the needs of HIV positive people in rural Ghana. One morning I drove deep into the countryside with a local healthcare worker until we arrived at a small bright blue church surrounded by tall grass. This is where I met a twenty-year-old woman named Regina. She was alone in the chapel, sitting in silence. She had a bright smile and it widened when I told her there was a city in Canada named after her.

Regina was HIV positive but could not afford to pay for antiretroviral (ARV) drugs that could have helped prevent the growth of the virus. Instead she lived alone in her village’s church and prayed for a miracle.

For those who know its benefits - ARV drugs are a miracle. They became a standard treatment in America in 1996 and that same year deaths due to AIDS-related complications started to decline.1 However, in Africa these deaths did not start to decline until 20072 - the same year I met Regina.

When they were first introduced ARV drugs cost over $10,000 a year. However, it was eventually demonstrated that this medicine could be produced and sold for as little as $350 a year - less than a dollar a day. Yet for years international patent laws prevented African drug manufacturers from making more affordable versions of these life saving drugs.

So for a decade millions of people in African nations died needlessly, all to protect the profits of some of the world’s largest corporations.3 This is without a doubt one of the most inhumane tragedies in world history.

Fortunately, things started to change when one nation fought back. For years India resisted the patent claims of western drug companies and manufactured affordable versions of all sorts of life saving medication. It was Indian copycat ARV drugs that first arrived in Africa, where they are now available for less than $100 a year.4 In the decade that followed access to ARV therapy in sub-saharan Africa increased an astonishing 100 fold.5 As a result millions of people escaped suffering the same fate as Regina.

Now though, the pharmaceutical industry is teaming up with countries like Canada and the US in an attempt to tighten their stranglehold on the world’s medicine. They are trying to do this through a new global trade agreement called the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP).

The TPP will extend patents, allowing corporations to keep drug prices higher for longer. Furthermore, it will give these same corporations new powers to sue countries - like India and Canada - who stand up to them. The impact will be a global rise in the cost of medicine.

International medical organization Doctors Without Borders has issued a simple description of the TPP: “This is catastrophic.”6

Harper’s Conservatives helped craft the TPP but Trudeau’s Liberals have signed it. We still have time to convince them not to pass it through Parliament, but the problem is that most Canadians have no idea what this trade deal is really all about.

That’s why we’ve produced the 2nd of three short ads we’re crowdfunding to air on national television. Many of you have already chipped into help make sure this crucial message reaches as many people as possible - thank you.

Will you watch the new video and consider supporting these people-powered ads?

With hope,

Sean, Emma, Shane and the whole SHD team.
www.SueCanada.ca

SOURCES:

[1] "30 Years of HIV/AIDS: Snapshots of an epidemic" - Amfar.org
http://www.amfar.org/thirty-years-of-hiv/aids-snapshots-of-an-epidemic/

[2] "How Africa Turned AIDS around" - UN AIDS Special Report 2013
http://www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/en/media/unaids/contentassets/documents/unaidspublication/2013/20130521_Update_Africa.pdf

[3] "Millions Die in Africa after Big Pharma Blocks Import of Generic AIDS Drug" - Democracy Now 2013
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/23/fire_in_the_blood_millions_die

[4] "Drug Company's Loss could be Africa's Gain" - The Guardian 2011
http://www.theguardian.com/society/sarah-boseley-global-health/2011/jan/04/aids-pharmaceuticals-industry

[5] "HIV Treatment Now reaching more than 6 million people in sub-Saharan Africa" - UN AIDS Press Release 2012
http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/pressreleaseandstatementarchive/2012/july/20120706prafricatreatment

[6] "Drug Prices Expected to Rise as result of TPP Deal" - Globe and Mail 2015
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/drug-prices-expected-to-rise-as-result-of-trade-deal/article27627091/

SHD · Canada


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