American Medical Student Association

Launched by the Young Professionals Chronic Disease Network and Australian design firm Local Peoples, NCDFREE (www.ncdfree.org), is a global social movement that will address NCD (non-communicable disease) inequalities and highlight young change-makers striving to make a difference locally and worldwide.

NCDs, such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and lung disease, kill more people than any other cause worldwide – 35 million every year. Instead of blaming individuals and painting NCDs as a disease affecting older, wealthier people, NCDFREE will change the narrative to one that shows the NCD burden resting largely in developing countries and affecting individuals in the prime of their lives.

The first step in defining the NCD narrative is through three short films. These films will highlight the global inequities wrapped up with NCDs by profiling the inspiring work of young change-makers in Bangladesh, Kenya, and Mongolia.

For a glimpse of the type of films that will follow, check out our short film: http://vimeo.com/62332644.

Today, India's Supreme Court rejected an application from Novartis AG for a patent on a cancer drug. This is a landmark ruling that will ensure that poor patients worldwide will have access to lifesaving medications.

Novartis' application asked for a new patent to protect its investment in the cancer drug Glivec. India has a large generic drug industry - almost $26 billion - so this decision impacts much of the developing world.

AMSA continues to pressure pharmaceutical companies to provide affordable medicines to developing countries and lobbies to ensure that international trade regulations afford the right to do so.

Read more from the New York Times.

AMSA welcomes the recent announcement of a collaboration between the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) and ViiV to improve access to pediatric HIV medicines and stimulate creation of new pediatric formulations, including a license for the pediatric formulation of a crucial antiretroviral, abacavir, which will greatly expand access for at least 98.7 percent of children living with HIV.

The Memorandum of Understanding signed by both parties greatly improves upon the previous licenses negotiated by the MPP and is the most far-reaching agreement yet between the MPP and a pharmaceutical company. In particular, AMSA would like to congratulate the MPP on specific provisions in the agreement: an expanded geographic scope of 118 countries as well as any country without a blocking patent for the abacavir sub-licenses as well as any pipeline product for pediatric use, a royalty-free and non-exclusive abacavir license, the ability to manufacture anywhere in the world, lack of restrictions on the procurement of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) and finished product in the licensed territory, and a commitment to work with third-parties to develop fixed-dose combinations.

“While we applaud ViiV’s efforts in working with the Medicines Patent Pool to increase access to these life-saving medicines, we hope that continued negotiations will lead to similar, if not better agreements for drugs in their pipeline, such as dolutegravir for both children and adults,” says Reshma Ramachandran, AMSA’s PharmFree Fellow. “We hope that other companies including Johnson and Johnson, Merck, and AbbVie as well as GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer that launched ViiV will continue to work with the Medicines Patent Pool to further efforts to collaboratively maximize access to these drugs for patients worldwide.”

In December 2012, AMSA joined other organizations including Health Global Access Project, Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, and Oxfam International to call upon pharmaceutical companies to enter into and conclude negotiations with the MPP.

We at the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) are very excited for tomorrow's We Can End AIDS March in Washington, DC! AMSA will be joining thousands of other marchers and asking for "accountability from Big Pharma and government officials around the world."

What does this mean?

We want our governments to put patients ahead of pharmaceutical profits. Instead of being influenced by Big Pharma to create trade policies and legislation that enables access to affordable medicines rather than expensive, brand name alternatives. Only 7.4 million of the 34 million infected with HIV worldwide are currently receiving ARVs. We know thanks to the NIH funded HPTN052 study that treatment is prevention. We need our policymakers take this science and put this into practice through laws that allow for patients worldwide to have access to cheaper generics.

To find out more or join us in DC tomorrow - http://www.amsa.org/AMSA/Homepage/Events/IAC.aspx. 

By Marce Abare

I’m from rural New England. My childhood house was actually inside a cow pasture. Looking for a ticket out, the appeal of going to college was primarily the chance to see new places. Initially it was through travel that I began to appreciate the rawness, both beautiful and ill, that determine the environments in which we live.

I had the opportunity to work at a pediatric hospital in South Africa in 2002. It was a place where antiretroviral drugs weren’t available to average citizens unless they could enroll in a research study. While witnessing HIV-positive infants and toddlers die needlessly for lack of medicine, I realized that there are specific reasons why people facing the same circumstances – in this case HIV infection – can and should be expected to undergo completely different outcomes based on where they live, the color of their skin, how much money and social capital can be called upon for help. Maybe it was easier for me to see the stark contrast created by injustice while traveling, but upon returning home to North Carolina, where there were hundreds of North Carolinians on waiting lists for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, I started wondering how different these places really are. Between Durban and Durham, what seemed the greatest distinctions were the nature of public rhetoric and the scale and visibility of a problem; of course the roots of social injustice were the same.

Looking back to a decade ago, I left South Africa brimming with new knowledge but without tools to act.
The 2004 International AIDS Conference (IAC) filled in this missing link. I traveled to Bangkok and found myself in the midst of a powerful, well-versed and goal-focused community of Thai people living with HIV, drug users, sex workers and allies from around the world standing together, that I understood the spectrum of avenues of engagement through which each of us can play a role that makes a difference. 

Whether it’s learning to use media to raise public awareness of industry tactics to generate profit in contrast with access shortfalls, understanding proceedings in which trade policies are determined, or shaping legislative or regulatory decisions that must be reoriented to a public health paradigm—the world’s best minds in activism gather at the IAC every year.

I am particularly proud to be an AMSA member this year, when for the first time in more than two decades, thanks to President Obama’s leadership in lifting in the ban on entry for those living with HIV, the IAC will be held on U.S. soil.

I urge you to attend. Health professional students will be marching alongside the world in Washington, D.C. Our message is simple: make access to treatment and prevention universal; address the lack of adequate housing, education, income opportunities and food security; reverse discriminatory policies that reinforce marginalization and fuel the spread of HIV.

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity - join us!!

Kristin Huntoon
AMSA Health Policy Chair

“15 million by 2015”, “Treat AIDS, Stop the Virus”, “Keep your promise”, “mag aan die mense (Power to the People)” these are just a few of the cheers that were echoed across the walls of the United Nations (UN) Building in New York City on Wednesday by hundreds of HIV/TB/Malaria advocates to those delegates meeting at UN General Assembly High Level Meeting on AIDS. As Assembly members exited their shiny black delegate cars, they received a resounding reminder of the important decisions that would be voted upon in the coming days.

The demands by those attending the rally included: full funding to end AIDS, respect for human rights for all people, 15 million people on AIDS treatment by 2015, an end to trade deals that put profits and patents ahead of lives, adopt International Declaration on Poverty, Housing Instability and HIV/AIDS, cut tuberculosis death among People Living with HIV/AIDS by at least 50 percent, elimination of new infections from injection drug use and mother to child transmission, and reduction of HIBV infections via sex by 50 percent.

Simple enough, especially considering that this comes on the heels of exciting new science that shows that when people living with HIV are on treatment they are 96 percent less likely to transmit HIV to their partners.

Sadly, the PEPFAR program only plans to treat “more than 4 million people” by 2013. President Obama’s budget request is the smallest increase ever for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief program—just 0.5 percent for Fiscal Year 2012, far off track toward meeting the President's own funding promises with warnings to PEPFAR country directors across Africa to plan for "painful cuts next year."

According to UNAIDS, committing to a modest increase now will avoid a much longer term investment as well as the chance to prevent 12 million infections and save 7 million lives.

Likewise, activists also voiced concern that while the U.S. continues to roll out AIDS treatment, it is simultaneously seeking to negotiate trade deals what would undermine access to less expensive, generic versions of new drugs.

On the General Assembly’s last day of meeting, it appeared that the United States will endorse a new AIDS treatment goal to reach 15 million people with anti-retroviral drugs by 2015. This plan aims to increase global AIDS financing by $6 billion per year globally—from a combination of donor and national funding. Although this is a step forward, plans are just political declarations until a concrete plan is executed and many issues still remain, but we are one……

Merrian Brooks, DO

Hundreds of people from many AIDS activist groups joined together on Wednesday to demand sound policies and greater funding for HIV. The group marched 12 blocks, first stopping at the EU building, demanding that the EU stop endorsement trade agreements that support big pharmaceutical companies and result in HIV medicines being more expensive than they could be given generic more open generic competition. Next the rally stopped in front of a NYC gym where Mayor Bloomberg was exercising and demanded that he maintain funding for housing programs that people living with HIV desperately need. Finally, the march ended with a rally outside of the UN building where the coalition made its demands and raised awareness about pressing issues.

One issue brought up, by many of the speakers at the rally is the growing very disturbing trend of treating people with HIV as biological weapons. One case mentioned, was of a man who was sentenced to 35 years in prison for spitting on a police officer a normally minor offense, unless you have HIV. Given that one needs gallons of saliva to transmit HIV to another person, the harshness of this sentence is difficult to justify. The speakers asked citizens and leadership to be aware of these policies and to block them whenever they can.