Essential Medicines News

Shahin Lockman, et al. “Response to antiretroviral therapy after a single, peripartum dose of nevirapine,” New England Journal of Medicine, 11 January 2007.
Investigators found that waiting for six months to start nevirapine-based antiretroviral therapy can help to prevent drug resistance in HIV-positive women who took a dose of nevirapine during labor in effort to prevent […]

Laurie Garrett, “The challenge of Global Health,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2007.
Garrett, a Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations, has written an excellent essay on the current challenges to public health. Dr. Margaret Chan has taken over as the new director of the World Health Organization, with turnovers in […]

Denise Grady, “An outbreak of Rift Valley fever kills dozens in Kenya,” The New York Times, 8 January 2007.
One hundred and sixty-five cases of Rift Valley fever have been reported in Kenya, with heavy rains being blamed for creating an ideal environment for mosquitoes to breed. The World Health Organization, Doctors Without Borders and […]

Gerald Tenywa, “Uganda: Nema okays DDT use for malaria,” New Vision, 2 January 2007.
The National Environment Management Authority is encouraging the use of DDT to kill mosquitoes, in an attempt to control the spread of malaria. According to the Ugandan Ministry of Health, 320 persons die every day of malaria. While the Stockholm […]

Kevin Freking, “House passes Medicare drug bill,” Associated Press, 12 January 2007.
The newly Democratic House has passed a bill which would allow the secretary of Health and Human Resources, instead of individual insurance companies, to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to obtain the cheapest price for medicines for those on Medicare. Republican objections stem […]

Linda Johnson, “Drug makers doing better on study info,” Associated Press, 10 January 2007.
Medical journals have been pressuring pharmaceutical companies to make their clinical studies available to the public for general review, to reduce the bias in publishing only the studies that support the use of a drug. In 2006, only 8% of […]

I will not be posting through 14 January as I attend the National Conference on Media Reform. Other contributors may continue to post through the weekend, and I’ll try to catch up on the 14th and 15th.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that a company could sue to challenge the validity of a patent at the same time it licensed that patent. The ruling in MedImmune, Inc. v. Genentech, Inc. overturns the decisions of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which had upheld the decision of a lower court […]

James Love, “The high prices we pay for government funded inventions,” Huffington Post, 9 January 2007.
“Re: Federal Procurement of Patented Drugs under Statutory Licenses,” letter to Office of Management and Budget, Essential Inventions, 5 January 2007.
In the United States, the Bayh-Dole Act allowed recipients of federal government research grants to retain intellectual property rights on […]

“WHO plans to increase treatment access for victims of rabies and snake bites,” World Health Organization, 9 January 2007.
The tenth most common fatal infection, rabies, is 100% preventable with therapeutic sera. More than 99% of all rabies deaths occur in Africa or Asia, because it is always fatal without treatment. Of the reported scorpion […]