[EQ] How Do Intellectual Property Law and International Trade Agreements Affect Access to Antiretroviral Therapy?

        Trade agreements/ accessibility

      How Do Intellectual Property Law and International Trade Agreements
Affect Access to Antiretroviral Therapy?

      Michael Westerhaus is a medical resident in the Department of
Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United
States.
      Arachu Castro is Assistant Professor of Social Medicine in the Program
in Infectious Disease and Social Change, Department of Social Medicine,
Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States, and Medical
Anthropologist in the Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities,
Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts,
United States. Both authors are at the Institute for Health and Social
Justice, Partners In Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
      PLoS Medicine Volume 3 - Issue 8 - August 2006

      Available online at:
      http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10
%2E1371%2Fjournal%2Epmed%2E0030332

                 Or at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0030332

      "..In this paper, we examine the key areas of concern regarding access
to ART related to US-negotiated bilateral, regional, and multilateral trade
agreements. We first examine developments in IP law in the wake of WTO's
Doha Declaration, which affirmed the priority of public health over the
protection of patents. We look specifically at those developments with
particular salience for health related issues and link this history with the
current context of access to antiretrovirals (ARVs) worldwide. Next we map
out the key claims about, and questions surrounding, the role of patent law,
followed by a critical look at the impact of trade agreements on IP law and
their potential threat to global health.

      Finally, we suggest policy and advocacy strategies to ensure and
promote access to ART in the era of US-led attempts to strengthen global IP
law through the vehicle of "free" trade agreements...." [au]

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Received on Thu Aug 10 09:54:33 2006