{"id":10834,"date":"2003-03-01T11:19:27","date_gmt":"2003-03-01T11:19:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/?p=10834"},"modified":"2014-05-28T16:11:07","modified_gmt":"2014-05-28T16:11:07","slug":"patent-law-overrides-would-not-expand-access-to-drugs-for-low-income-nations-opinion-piece-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/10834","title":{"rendered":"Patent law overrides would not expand access to drugs for low-income nations, opinion piece says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The United States\u2019 insistence in World Trade Organisation talks that patent overrides for low-income nations only apply to drugs to fight specific diseases, such as AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, is one instance in which \u201cthe United States is right, while our usual allies &#8230; are wrong,\u201d John Calfee, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, writes in a Washington Times opinion piece.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Advocates of the plan being considered &#8211; which mandates some patent protections be relaxed to allow low-income nations access to drugs &#8211; have \u201cfallen for a simplistic argument,\u201d Calfee writes. Although proponents of the plan say it is \u201cbetter to sacrifice a little profit and help the sick poor,\u201d Calfee argues that \u201ccheaper drugs tend to get trans-shipped to destinations where prices are higher,\u201d and that low-cost drugs \u201carouse envy\u201d in nations paying full prices.<\/p>\n<p>According to Calfee, patents and prices are \u201cusually not even the same problem\u201d; instead, he states that health care infrastructures must improve. \u201cUntil these nations get rudimentary health care markets, rule of law and honest governments, drug prices will remain largely irrelevant,\u201d he writes. In lieu of dropping patent law in some countries, the international community should \u201cfac[e] the fact that the anti-patent approach to improving public health has failed and needs to be replaced with patent protection and a willingness to buy the cures that research creates\u201d (Calfee, Washington Times, 1\/28).<\/p>\n<p>Source:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/kaisernetwork.org\"> http:\/\/kaisernetwork.org<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kaisernetwork.org\/daily_reports\/print_report.cfm? DR_ID=15746&amp;dr_cat=1\"> http:\/\/www.kaisernetwork.org\/daily_reports\/print_report.cfm? DR_ID=15746&amp;dr_cat=1<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The United States\u2019 insistence in World Trade Organisation talks that patent overrides for low-income nations only apply to drugs to fight specific diseases, such as AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, is one instance in which \u201cthe United States is right, while &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-treatment-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10834\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}