A Grassroots Expose of the Impact of India’s New Patent Legislation on AIDS Treatment

This ethnographic based project is timely. Given India’s recent change in patent laws, these academics/activists are going to document, on the ground, how families manage (or not) to get AIDS drugs. Look below for the project goals:

During the summer of 2005, we plan to create a baseline record that establishes how India’s HIV-infected populations depend on the Indian versions of Western patented Anti-retro Viral (ARV) drugs to survive. The baseline will also establish how they think they will manage as drug prices surge and any stockpiled drugs are depleted.

Using audio recorders, photographs and video, we plan to document the lives of families struggling to buy ARV drugs to keep a family member healthy; the challenges that stigmatized AIDS patients face in trying to earn enough money to buy the lifesaving treatment; activists desperately searching for new sources of inexpensive ARV drugs or lobbying the Indian government to grant compulsory licenses to continue producing cheap drugs. We plan to visit AIDS shelters and hospices in and around Mumbai, Bangalore, and Chennai.

The voices of those who support the new patent laws are only growing louder in the press, while the opposition to the law from the families and activists struggling to keep HIV-infected people alive has been reduced to one sentence that appears in almost all articles about the benefits of india’s new patent laws: “Some international medical-aid organizations protested the new patent regime, arguing it could crimp the supply of inexpensive generic drugs made in India.”

They have faced significant hurdles getting funding from traditional NGO’s (via their blog). Do support them with a small donation or if broke, do spread the word!