Access to Medicines: the Role of Intellectual property Law and Policy

Intellectual property (IP) policy is an important structural determinant of health. Patent policy influences the rate and direction of innovation for health, playing a positive or negative role depending on how it is shaped and implemented. Patent policy also has critical implications for access to existing medicines and medical technologies. This has been illustrated most dramatically in the context of the global Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)/ Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) pandemic. Prices for a three-drug combination of anti-retroviral (ARV) HIV therapy in 2000 from patent-holding companies exceeded USD $10,000 per person per year, ensuring that treatment could not be extended to the vast majority of those living with HIV around the world. Generic competition led to precipitous price reductions, so that today treatment can be provided for less than USD$75 per person per year. This history has contributed to the growing recognition that strong patent law applied to pharmaceuticals in developing countries undermines access to medicines and compromises the human right to health. While the relationship between IP and innovation is covered in a separate paper, it is worth noting here that there is little reason to expect that stronger patent rights in developing countries will lead to any substantial offsetting gains in innovation for the affected countries. Developing countries represent a very small share of the world’s pharmaceutical market, meaning that the marginal added value of stronger patent protection will be small, and is unlikely to outweigh the costs to access

What was the Social Revolution of 1946 in East Sumatra?

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Ethical Judgments among Public Relations Officers in Higher Education Institutions:a Cross-National Study

Kajian bertujuan menentukan: (i) bagaimana beretika atau tidak sesetengah amalan hipotesis perhubungan awam yang diamalkan oleh pegawai perhubungan awam di institusi pengajian tinggi (universiti, kolej, institut, sekolah) di Amerika Syarikat, India, China, Malaysia, Thailand, Israel, Palestin, dan Emiriyah Arab Bersatu; (ii) sama ada jenis institusi, sikap pegawai, ciri profesional dan kebertanggungjawapan memberikan perbezaan yang signifikan dan pertimbangan etika mereka, dan (iii) menentukan - ..... sejauhmana agama dan polisi institusi di tempat setiap pegawai bekerja mempengaruhi pertimbangan etikanya. Populasi kajian terdiri daripada pegawai perhubungan awam di institusi yang mempunyai Iaman web berbahasa Inggeris. Satu sampel rambang sistematik mengandungi 254 (10%) yang dipilih daripada 2540 institusi di Amerika Syarikat. Sementara itu, semua institusi yang mempunyai Iaman web berbahasa Inggeris di negara-negara lain dikaji. The study determines: how ethical/unethical certain hypothetical public relations practices are as perceived by public relations practitioners in higher education institutions (universities, colleges, institutes, schools) in the United States, India, China, Malaysia, Thailand, Israel, Palestine, and the United Arab Emirates; whether the institution type, practitioners' personal attributes, professional characteristics and responsibilities produce significant differences in their ethical judgments; and finally to determine the extent to which religion and the policy of the institution for which each practitioner serves influence his/her ethical judgments. -··- The population consists of public relations officers in the institutions that have English web-sites only. A systematic random sample of 254 ( 1 0%) institutions was drawn from 2540 of the United States, while all English web-sited institutions of the other countries were surveyed