Annals of Crisis: A Peek Back at TAG’s First Year Shows How Much, and How Little, Has Changed
TAGline • 2002A Peek Back at TAG’s First Year Shows How Much, and How Little, Has Changed “Homing in on Basic Research” By Mark Harrington The beginning of this year marks TAG’s tenth anniversary as the nation’s only organization focused exclusively on advocating for more and better AIDS research; and speeding discovery, development, approval, and distribution of…
Report from the 3rd International STI Workshop, 2002
Publication • 2002March 23-24, 2002 Montréal, Quebec, Canada Sponsored by: Foundation for AIDS & Immune Research The Forum for Collaborative HIV Research Gay Men’s Health Crisis Project Inform Treatment Action Group Linda Grinberg (1951–2002) · In Memoriam Linda Grinberg, a fearless AIDS treatment activist, founder and president of the Foundation for AIDS and Immune Research (FAIR) and…
Comments on Problems in the Current Draft World Health Organization (WHO) Antiretroviral Treatment Guidelines for Resource Limited Settings
Publication • 2002By Mark Harrington March 2002 Twenty-one years into the HIV pandemic the World Health Organization (WHO) has loosened itself from its slothlike lethargy and bureaucratic torpor to produce, seemingly with great reluctance and certainly with great confusion, a draft document on “Antiretroviral Guidelines for Resource Limited Settings.” In a justly scathing critique, Gregg Gonsalves wrote…
Brazil 1, Merck 0: The Cost of Generic Drugs in Brazil
TAGline • 2001The Cost of Generic Drugs in Brazil Indinavir Efavirenz USA $6,000(1) $4,700 Brazil (generic) $2,928 $2,545 Brazil (Merck 2001) $1,029 $920 “Low” HDI(2) country $600 $500 Price per year per person. Human Development Index of the United Nations, composite scoring of life expectancy, educational attainment, standard of living. Most of sub-Saharan Africa is scored…
African Epistle: Outrage, Indifference Greet Plans for Worldwide Treatment Agenda — As Millions More Die
TAGline • 2001Outrage, Indifference Greet Plans for Worldwide Treatment Agenda — As Millions More Die By Mark Harrington “No Drugs in Time for Her” In April, Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, said it would take just $7-10 billion a year to mobilize the resources necessary to reverse the ravages not only of HIV, but of tuberculosis…
Open Letter to Pharma Execs
TAGline • 2001“We have never been against patents. We have been against monopoly.” — Dr. Yusuf Hamied, CEO, Cipla Dear Sirs: We are writing as a coalition of AIDS treatment advocates, educators, and service providers to request that GlaxoSmithKline immediately withdraw from participation in threatened legal action regarding the importation of generic antiretroviral medications in Ghana and South…
Report and Recommendations from the STI Workshop, October 2000
Publication • 2001January 31, 2001 STRUCTURED TREATMENT INTERRUPTIONS WORKSHOP Workshop Summary The investigation of Structured Treatment Interruption (STI) has fluid borders. Interruption is considered a treatment strategy per se, an adjunct to treatment, as well as the removal of treatment. Though first proposed as an immune-based treatment strategy, STI is now being explored as a research tool…
Patent Politics: Nongovernmental Organization Access Effort Dealt Stealth Blow By Ivy League Development Institute
TAGline • 2001Nongovernmental Organization Access Effort Dealt Stealth Blow By Ivy League Development Institute “We observe no apparent correlation between access to antiretroviral treatment, which is uniformly poor across Africa, and patent status, which varies extensively by country and drug.” — Amir Attaran, Center for International Development, Harvard University, and Lee Gillespie-White, International Intellectual Property Institute Source: JAMA…
Vaccine Vitriol: Call for Poor Country Focus on Treatment, Care Programs Elicits Voice of Concern from Vaccine Outfit
TAGline • 2001Call for Poor Country Focus on Treatment, Care Programs Elicits Voice of Concern from Vaccine Outfit By Mark Harrington Price of Global Public Health HIV $4.06 billion TB $500 million Malaria $1.0 billion Add’l. infrastructure $440 million TOTAL, Yrs 1 – 3 $6.0 billion Add’l. rx and care $4.0 billion TOTAL, Yrs 5 –…
Brazil: What Went Right?
TAGline • 2000The Global Challenge of Access to Treatment and the Issue of Compulsory Licensing By Mark Harrington December 2000 “We have upside down access to AIDS drugs in this world. The drugs are where the disease is not, and the disease is where the drugs are not. Commercial interests come above human suffering.” Peter Mugyenyi Joint…