today I would like to talk and analyze about one of the TedTalks, Pool Medical Patents by Ellen 'T Hoen. 'T Hoen starts off her speech with brief explanation about the airplane patents of the Wright Brothers. Successfully taking off the airplane on December 17, 1903, they were filing patents and suing competitors who were trying to pass patents on flying machine. Yet, US government went against this patent warring as US government was trying to increase the production of military airplanes. Ellen 'T Hoen viewed this negatively as it went against the development in industry. If the US government lets patent holders hold production of military machines, then not many firms would be allowed to produce machines as it is illegal. So the US government went against this to make patents available to share with others.
'T Hoen compares this to example of life-saving medications. Similarly, accessing drugs like antiretroviral drugs (ARV) used to cure HIV, was only available to wealthy countries because of the high price. India, not knowing this, produced many generic formulations and rugs of ARV that caused the cost to drop to $350 per patient when it was $12,000 in wealthy countries. 'T Hoen continues as she says that it saved many lives due to many productions and cheap products that was accessible to many people.
In 1995, the Word Trade Organization makes new rule of ensuring 20-year patents for new medications that leads the number of patents increase highly.
'T Hoen remarks this by saying that if US government doesn't do anything, then another drug price crises will occur. Therefore, she suggests that something has to be outlawed to tackle the HIV epidemic.
Hi Tiffany,
ReplyDeleteAwesome summary of Ellen Hoen's presentation! There were some details about her argument that you covered that I completely missed such as the new WTO law that was passed. One thing that maybe you could incorporate in your next post would be to cover your opinion more and your idea if this Medicine Pool Patent will actually work? It would be awesome to hear what you think about this new form of action being taken!
Informative blogpost on the presentation. I would like to know your personal thoughts on it as well.
ReplyDeleteHi Tiffany,
ReplyDeleteGreat job yet again. I too analyzed this TED talk. I found it very inspiring. It would be great to see your personal opinion on this, however. Nonetheless, you provided many great points such as the steps taken by the WTO regarding this matter. Next time, in addition to offering your own opinion, try and provide a bit more analysis instead of just a summary! :)