Ethical

After watching “TEDTalks: Ellen 't Hoen—Pool Medical Patents, Save Lives,” I have a different outlook on the pharmaceutical industry. Ellen began her speech by telling a little story about how airplanes were invented and how the government forced all people with patents to share the information they had in order to create a working airplane.

The ethical dilemma presented in the story is that there were people in Kenya that were diagnosed with HIV. They were told that there was no cure for the disease, even though there was one. On the rich countries such as Europe and North America could afford this time of medicine. A man named Nelson Otwoma was able to change the way medicine was produced worldwide. By using medicine patent pools companies were able to create a generic version of the medicine so that other countries could afford it and treat their people. There was a small period of time where the pool was taken away, but it eventually came back into effect. I think that another solution to this could have been that companies simply donate medicine to these countries in desperate need. HIV is something that should be taken seriously, and the fact that we can help people and choose not to is very sad.

“The company Gilead that holds the patent has licensed the intellectual property to the medicines patent pool. The pool is already working today, two months later, with generic manufacturers to make sure that this product can go to market at low cost where and when it is needed.”(Hoen, 2013) companies are making great strides to help people all over the world, sacrificing their own profits in order make medicine available to everyone.