WAD: U Mich students Jingle for Representative Dingell
Medical students from the University of Michigan gathered yesterday for World AIDS Day to rally Representative John Dingell’s support regarding several key issues surrounding global health and health care reform. Students sang modified versions of Christmas carols, whose words were replaced with language describing the necessity of: 1) accessible and affordable essential medicines for HIV/AIDS patients worldwide and 2) continued backing of PEPFAR, which currently only has $366 million of the $48 billion as promised by former President George W. Bush in 2008.
Most of the buzz in health care reform revolves around insurance and patient coverage. An equally important aspect of health reform that may not be receiving as much clout, however, is the issue of biogeneric drugs. Biogeneric drugs–refer to earlier posts of two videos–are the generic version of expensive biologic drugs. Biologic drugs are created from live cells and treat diseases such as Rheumatoid Arthritis, Breast Cancer, Multiple Sclerosis and Alzheimer’s. The cost of these drug regimens are very expensive; the drug called Herceptin used to treat breast cancer may run a bill of $45,000 per year. If law does not pass that allows generic production of an equally effective biogeneric drug, patient access to life saving medicines will be extremely limited to those with good insurance coverage (sometimes not even the case) and/or financial cushioning (a significant chunk of the global patient population is crowded out from treatment in face of these drug prices).
Please support the passage of biogeneric drugs by limiting data exclusivity to 5 years, not the proposed 12 years. In addition to the 12 year data exclusivity of biologics, Pharma wants to reel in more profits and continue their monopoly reign through a process called ‘evergreening.’ Evergreening occurs when a drug is slightly modified–changing from thrice a day to once a day pill–and allows Pharma to retain their monopoly of a biologic, essentially crowding out market competition, drug innovation and patient access to care. If Pharma gets their way with biologic drugs, they will have 12 + 12 years on top of their 20 year patent, and will exclude an entire generation from important medicines.
If you would like to get involved, and change the course of biogeneric history, please:
Thanks for reading. Happy WAD.
About The Author
Susan Lewis
Susan Lewis is a second year medical student at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, Chicago Medical School. She has been president of her school PHR chapter for two years. Susan has participated in AMSA's PharmFree Conference, Global Health Leadership Institute and Integrative Medicine Conference. She plans to pursue a career in community/primary care medicine, focusing on eliminating health disparities, especially among the marginalized and indigenous population, within the context of integrative medicine. Her lifetime goal is to become an informed and compassionate contributing member of the global society and local community, in which she may continually gain and give passion for healthy, harmonious and whole living, within all facets of life. Susan is also a writer for her university newspaper and is a regular contributer of FM Mag, an independent culture magazine from Denver, Colorado. She joined Global Pulse in 2009.
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Author his web sitehttp://www.globalpulsejournal.com
Bush didn’t promise 48 billion. Congress did and 2/3s of that money is not for treatment.
The policy of genital mutilation probably won’t stop AIDS.