Howdy friends - as a 4th year medical student, I am still scratching my head on these questions: Why is it that we have a world of an over-medicated minority and an under-medicated majority?
Why does a disease like HIV/AIDS go largely untreated in the world's poorest countries, decades after effective medicines have been developed to combat this deadly disease?
Access to essential medicines, and the lack thereof, is a critically important and embarrasingly obvious issue that we must address on a global scale.
My role as the PharmFree coordinator for the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) has given me a chance to work with great global health advocates to begin to bring the conversations around essential medicines, international health, and global AIDS into the same circles as conflicts of interest and medical professionalism.
How can we ignore the reality that the same companies that throw thousands of dollars at physicians each year (in lunches, pens, seminars, CMEs, etc.) to bribe them into prescribing that company's erectile dysfunction and sleep-aid drugs are THE SAME companies that often refuse to provide life-saving drugs to the developing world at an affordable price?
How will physicians begin to call for a change in the way that business is done when we are literally and figuratively eating out of the hands of the pharmaceutical giants? (e.g. the more than $40 million year that the American Medical Association makes from selling physician information to drug companies)
We must begin to stand up for global access to needed medicines by saying no to drug companies' gifts and bribes, sending a message that we stand for a more ethical way of developing and dispensing prescriptions drugs to our world's population.
Let us shout and act the mantra:
YES to access to meds,
NO to access to our integrity!
* Sign the AMSA PharmFree pledge today - you do not need to be a pre-med or medical student to do so! http://www.amsa.org/prof/pledge.cfm
In health,
Anthony Fleg
www.pharmfree.org
A Video Primer
This video was produced for the recent IFMSA International Conference (http://www.ukam2007.org/) which focused on Access to Essential Medicines throughout the world. It briefly introduces many of the issues surrounding access to essential medicines. Some of the questions raised such as:
- What does access to essential medicines mean?
- What exactly is meant by the term essential?
- Whose responsibility is it to find the answers?
- Is access to essential medicines a human right?
- What can we do as students?
will be addressed by upcoming guest bloggers in the days to come. If you would like to blog in depth on any of the issues presented in this video, please let us know. We would love to have you contribute.
A beginning
In recent years, increasing attention has been placed on increasing access to essential medicines in lower- and middle-income countries. This blog is dedicated to keeping those interested in this important struggle informed regarding the historical background of essential medicines, up-to-date on new developments, and a place where people can freely discuss and explore the many important issues surrounding access to essential medicines. In the coming months, we hope to have guest bloggers contribute to the dialogue. We hope that you find this site useful and encourage you to participate actively. If you have something that you would like to contribute, please do not hesitate to let us know.
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