By Julian Urrutia Perhaps surprisingly to some, Colombia has come much further along the path towards universal coverage than many developed countries in the world, including the US. Most of this progress happened precipitously starting in the early 1990’s: while in 1993 fewer than 5% of people in the lowest income quintile had access to…
By The Petrie-Flom Center Want to know more about the ethics of aid? Want to hear the inspiring talk that’s convinced students across the northeast to take global poverty seriously? Join Harvard High-Impact Philanthropy for our first talk of the semester with ethicist Larry Temkin! RSVP here for Global Poverty: Why Should We Care? a talk by…
By Matt Baum The WHO Surgical Safety Checklist is unusual as a patient-safety intervention in that it has been widely promoted as universally effective, i.e. effective both in high-income and resource-limited settings; checklists are now used in approximately 1800 hospitals worldwide. In a paper recently published in the journal, BMJ Open, Aveling and colleagues report the…
By Scott Burris The Global Commission on HIV and the Law recently conducted a web discussion of steps to implement the Commission’s recommendations for better harmonizing law and HIV control. One of the questions for discussion was: What are examples of innovative or non-traditional partnerships that can be used to strategically advance human-rights based responses…
By I. Glenn Cohen If you were watching television this week you may have seen this clip of a taste test for hamburger meat grown in a “test tube” in London discussed here. The meat was grown from stem cells from existing cows used to grow 20,000 strands of tissue. Costing more than $330,000 to…
By Kevin Outterson In secret, during “trade” negotiations. Just one example: the 12 years of data exclusivity for biologics is currently US law, but that may get carved into stone in the new Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TIIP). Once enshrined in a trade agreement, this rule and thousands more will be immune to change…
By Ryan Abbott The Indian Federal Department of Pharmaceuticals has released a new Drugs (Prices Control) Order that expands the list of “essential” drugs subject to government price control. Currently, a 1995 order restricts prices on 74 bulk drugs and their formulations; the new order would control prices on a total of 348 medicines that…
By The Petrie-Flom Center
By I. Glenn Cohen [Cross-Posted at Prawfsblawg] The Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics has just published an article by me on transplant tourism, that discusses the burgeoning international market for buying and selling kidneys. I review the existing data from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India, which is pretty deplorable. As I show the vast majority…
By Adriana Benedict Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM)Boston-Wide Forum on Global Access Licensing of Biomedically Relevant Technologies Thursday, April 25th, 3-5pmCoffee and refreshments at 2:45pm; reception following the eventHarvard Medical School New Research Building – 77 Avenue Louis PasteurSeminar Room 1031 How do innovative medical technologies make their way to a global population, including…
