Foreign Affairs: A Bitter Pill: Can the Access to Medicines Movement Score Another Victory?
“…[I]t is clear that this broader coalition [of the group Fix the Patent Laws] cannot simply mimic [South Africa’s Treatment Action Campaign’s] successful struggle for access to AIDS medicines. … Privately, organizers worry that it will be hard to recreate the clear moral consensus around all medicines. And there is this: although sharply discounting the price of AIDS medicines was not welcomed by the pharmaceutical industry, their eventual concessions amounted to a small slice of their profit margins. The Fix the Patent Laws’ broader challenge to the drug patent system is a frontal attack on the industry’s entire business model…” (Quigley, 10/18).