Int J Health Serv
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Patent protection for prescription drugs has a long and contentious history in Canada. Bills C-22 and C-91, passed as part of Canada's commitment to various trade deals, first weakened and then abolished compulsory licensing. In order to decide on a future course of action that Canada should take on intellectual property rights (IPRs), it is useful to review downstream effects that resulted from C-22 and C-91. ⋯ The author then reviews the arguments advanced by the pharmaceutical industry in favor of stronger protection for IPRs, the recent complaints made against Canada at the World Trade Organization regarding pharmaceutical IPRs, and the continuing argument about the "evergreening" of patents. Also discussed are the second-draft text agreement of the Free Trade Area of the Americas, which will, if implemented, have significant repercussions for pharmaceutical IPRs in Canada, and some ways in which patents distort the marketplace for drugs. The article concludes with some alternative recommendations on the future of IPRs.
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This report presents information on the state of the U. S. health sector in late 2004. ⋯ The article also includes updates on the consequences of the Medicare prescription drug bill and the state of Medicare spending, and seniors' spending, on drugs; the results of some recent public opinion polls on health care; information on labor, labor unions, and health insurance; and some international comparisons of health insurance. The article concludes with some useful sources of information on single-payer, universal health care.
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Obesity has reached global epidemic levels, and two-thirds of Americans are now either obese or overweight. But the U. S. government, along with the powerful food industry, is trying to thwart the World Health Organization's efforts, through its proposed Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity, and Health, to make even the most commonsense recommendations on diet.
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Health care systems spend a relatively high percentage of their resources on the purchase of medicines, and the poor spend a disproportionate amount of their income on pharmaceuticals. There is ample evidence in the literature that drugs are very poorly used. World Bank-led health reforms aim at improving equity, efficiency, quality, and users' satisfaction, and it will be difficult to achieve these goals without making medicines accessible and affordable. ⋯ The authors found that the World Bank identified and recommended a set of pharmaceutical policies that matched the needs of the region. But, as revealed through fieldwork and a review of the literature, the recommended pharmaceutical interventions were left out of the health reforms, and most of the loans that included pharmaceutical interventions allocated funds only to the purchase of drugs. The authors formulate four hypotheses that may explain the lack of congruence between the recommended policies and the strategies financed by World Bank health reform loans to the Latin American region.
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The pharmaceutical industry routinely exaggerates its expenditures on research and development, but it does spend billions annually. But not all R&D is equally important. ⋯ Innovators are rewarded with a marketing monopoly, and this drives what kind of research they do and what practices they follow to profit from their products. It is a system that creates incentives for marketing more than for research, which inevitably drives the marketing mission to corrupt the R&D process.