In the second Comment accompanying The Lancet Series on Trade and Health, Nobel Prize winner Dr Joseph Stiglitz, Columbia University, New York, USA, discusses intellectual property and patents, and the resultant inequality that results for poorer countries.

He says: "The fundamental problem with the intellectual property (patent) system is simple: it is based on restricting the use of knowledge. There is no extra cost associated with an additional person gaining the benefits of knowledge. Restricting knowledge is thus inefficient, but the patent system also grants (temporary) monopoly power, which gives rise to enormous economic inefficiencies... drug companies spend far more money on advertising and marketing than on research, far more on research for lifestyle drugs than on life-saving drugs, and almost no money on diseases afflicting the poor countries, such as malaria. The reason is economics: companies direct their research where the money is, regardless of the value to society. Poor people cannot pay for drugs, so there is little research on their diseases, no matter what the costs to society."

He concludes: "These adverse effects of trade liberalisation, and trade agreements on health are not inevitable. They are the result of how we have managed trade-to enhance profits of the drug companies, not to enhance the health of those in the developing countries. As I, and Richard Smith and other colleagues in another paper in this Series, have proposed, we can reform our trade regimes and the way we finance and encourage research into drugs so as to improve health-and even lower costs."

Source
Tony Kirby
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