International Public Health Patients' Rights vs. the Protection of Patents

This perceptive book highlights the need for cooperation between major organisations - whether intergovernmental, commercial or nongovernmental - to ensure developing countries have access to affordable medicines and vaccines, in spite of their different mandates and interests. Yves Beigbeder reviews specific areas of international public health issues and programmes from the vantage point of one particular intergovernmental organisation - the World Health Organisation. He includes studies on the value and risks of public-private partnerships, the access of poor populations to essential drugs and the fight against malaria and tuberculosis and the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Further chapters focus on polio eradication, onchocerciasis control, alliances for vaccines and immunization, the promotion of breastfeeding, and the struggle against the tobacco industry.

Contents: Introduction. Part I: The United Nations and the World Health Organization: United Nations organizations and business; The World Health Organization and business. Part II: Setting International Public Health Policy; The promotion of breastfeeding; Essential drugs and the pharmaceutical industry; The global HIV/AIDS epidemic. Part III: Public-Private Partnerships for Health: Controlling onchocerciasis; The eradication of poliomyelitis; Fighting malaria and tuberculosis; Vaccines and immunization. Part IV: Fighting the Industry: Tobacco, the perfect 'foe'. Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

Yves Beigbeder