Photo: Ian Nixon

The great health grab
We're being held to ransom by an industry that makes obscene profits from our wellbeing. Dinyar Godrej on the case against Big Pharma.

Pressure points
How the drug biz reacts to scandal.

Freemarket freebies
Things get decidedly sweet when drug companies approach doctors. Tamar Wilner does some sleuthing.

Peddling paranoia
Alan Cassels takes issue with disease mongering.

BIG PHARMA – THE FACTS
Expanded section on Access to Medicines

Epidemic, what epidemic?
Treatment for a deadly disease or a depilatory cream: Big Pharma knows which is more important. Spring Gombe explains.

Patients versus patents
The pursuit of profit is proving fatal in Thailand. Teena Amrit Gill reports.

Who cares about cancer?
Joana Ramos delves into an area of neglect.

Bucking the trend
An interview with Yves Champey, director of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative.

Health hazard
Opening the casebook of Big Pharma’s dirty tricks.

Yuck, no thanks!
Don’t swallow the medicine – action and resistance.

Image Courtesy: www.adbusters.org

'THESE guys are so big, you can't beat them. So we thought, "Why not join them?"'

I was speaking with a campaigner for a group aiming to get essential drugs to needy people who don't have the means to pay for them. The 'big guys' she had in mind were the gargantuan Western drug companies - Big Pharma. The dancewith- the-devil option she was talking about seems to be finding favour among non-governmental organizations and I admit I wasn't unduly shocked.

If they want to get lifesaving drugs to the people who need them, some charities are choosing to rely on the better instincts of their traditional enemies. Big Pharma basks in good press and photo ops. Everything's partnershippy and peachy keen.

But questions of scale dog my mind. How far do these public-private embraces extend? They may benefit particular projects and people. But is this really the way to beat the challenges to millions of people posed by tuberculosis or AIDS? Should we really rely on the goodwill of an industry which preys on hapless consumers?

Then the campaigner said something that really got my attention - she used the C-word. 'You know, we are operating within a capitalist system.' She had put her finger on it. Medicines are big business. And Big Pharma is rapacious, red-fanged capitalism personified. Read on and see what 'these guys' get up to.

Dinyar Godrej
for the New Internationalist
Co-operative
dinyar@antenna.nl