Actions
This section includes:
- AMSA's Official Position on Issues
- Projects-in-a-Box
- Education, Policy, Direct Action Tools
- Issue Specific Resources
See the Resources/Partner Organizations section for a list of other organizations that work on access to medicines issues.
AMSA's Official Position on Issues
AMSA has taken a stand on issues of access to medicines, and these positions are listed in detail in our Constitution (also called the Preamble, Purposes, and Principles, or PPP) . This document is written by medical students, and amended only by vote of the official decision-making body of the Association, the House of Delagates.
- AMSA's "Improving Access to Medicines in Developing Countries: What Can You Do at Your University?" (zip file that includes many files listed below)
- AMSA's World AIDS Day (WAD) 2008 - overview and toolkit
- Student Global AIDS Campaign (SGAC) - Universal Access 2010 Campaign
Education, Policy, and Direct Action Tools
- Slide shows
- Open with Microsoft PowerPoint or with OpenOffice Impress, available at www.OpenOffice.org)
- Content: information about the issues, what your AMSA chapter can do, what other students have done
- Documents
- Sample letter to administration from students
- Sample letter to administration from faculty
- Sample resolution for student assemblies
- A Resolution passed by the U of Pennsylvania Medical Student Gov't
- Sample Petition
- Sample op-ed for your school paper
- Sample teach-in agenda
- SGAC's Universal Access 2010 - Take Action Ideas (pdf)
- SGAC's Universal Access 2010 - Access by the Numbers (pdf)
Overviews
- World Health Organization (WHO) list of 10 facts on essential medicines
- WHO Policy Brief on Equitable Access to Essential Medicines
- WHO. "Access to Medicines." WHO Drug Information Report. 2005 Nov 3; 19(3): 236-241. Available at: www.who.int/druginformation/vol19num3_2005/DI19-3.pdf.
- Quick, JD. "Essential medicines twenty-five years on: closing the access gap." Health Policy Plan. 2003 Mar;18(1):1-3.
Access to HIV/AIDS Medicines
- AMSA's World AIDS Day (WAD) 2008 materials:
- Overview
- Toolkit (includes more background and event ideas)
- Fact Sheet on "Access to Essential Medicines: The Challenge of HIV/AIDS" (pdf)
- PPT on Access to HIV Medicines
- Student Global AIDS Campaign (SGAC) materials
Patents / Trade
- World Trade Organization. "Frequently Asked Questions About TRIPS in the WTO." See http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/tripfq_e.htm.
- "Cut the Cost: Patent Injustice: How World Trade Rules Threaten the Health of Poor People." Oxfam report. See www.oxfam.org.uk/cutthecost.
- Benkler, Y, "Commons-Based Strategies and the Problems of Patents" Science, 2004; 305:1110-1111.
Research Gap / Negected Diseases
- Trouiller, P, Olliaro P, Torreele E, Orbinski J, Laing R, Ford N. "Drug development for neglected diseases: a deficient market and a public-health policy failure." Lancet. 2002 Jun 22;359(9324):2188-94.
- Pecoul, B. "New drugs for neglected diseases: from pipeline to patients." PLoS Med. 2004 Oct;1(1):e6. Epub 2004 Oct 19.
- Moran, M. "A breakthrough in R&D for neglected diseases: new ways to get the drugs we need." PLoS Med. 2005 Sep;2(9): Epub 2005 Sep 8.
- Gardner, C and Garner C, "Technology Licensing to Nontraditional Partners: Non-Profit Health Product Development Organizations for Better Global Health." Report from MIHR: Centre for the Management of Intellectual Property in Health Research and Development. See http://www.mihr.org.
Pricing / Generics
- "Action needed to tackle the second wave of the AIDS drug pricing crisis." Medicins Sans Frontieres Report. 26 July, 2005. See http://www.accessmedmsf.org/prod/publications.asp?scntid=2672005182505&contenttype=PARA&.
- Wainberg, MA. "Generic HIV drugs--enlightened policy for global health." N Engl J Med. 2005 Feb 24;352(8):747-50. Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics. 2003; 3:293.
- Havlir, DV, and Hammer SM. "Patents versus patients? Antiretroviral therapy in India." N Engl J Med. 2005 Aug 25;353(8):749-51.
Role of Universities / Technology Transfer
- Kishore SP, Dhadialla PS. A student-led campaign to help tackle neglected tropical diseases. PLoS Med. 2007 Jul 24;4(7):e241. [pdf]
- Amy Kapczynski et al., Global Health & University Patents, Science (Sept. 2003). [pdf]
- Dave Chokshi, Improving Access to Medicines in Poor Countries: The Role of Universities, PLos Medicine (June 2006). [pdf]
- Ellen t' Hoen, The Responsibility of Research Universities, The Yale Journal of Health, Policy, Law, and Ethics (Sept. 2003). [pdf]
- University of California, Berkeley's Socially Responsible Licensing Initiative: http://ipira.berkeley.edu/docs/sociallyresponsible.pdf
- T'Hoen, E. "The responsibility of research universities to promote access to essential medicines," Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics. 2003; 3:293.
- Nelsen, L. "The role of university technology transfer operations in assuring access to medicines and vaccines in developing countries," Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics 3:293 2003.
- Moses, H. "Financial anatomy of biomedical research." JAMA. 2005 Sep 21;294(11):1333-42.
- Campbell, E et al. "Inside the Triple Helix: Technology Transfer and Commercialization in the Life Sciences." Health Affairs, 2004 Jan-Feb;23(1):64-76.