Campaign for Fighting Diseases Blog

More spin from UNAIDS

This week the Commission on AIDS in Asia released its prediction that, without additional action, AIDS deaths in Asia could rise from 440,000 each year currently to nearly 500,000 annually by 2020, and total infections could double from 4.9 million to 10 million.

Our friend Prof Jim Chin, author of the AIDS pandemic: the collision of epidemiology and political correctness, has some stern words about this report on his website.  Prof Chin is particularly aggrieved by the report's claim that "regionally, AIDS is estimated to be the single largest cause of death and morbidity due to disease for adults age 15-44 years."  In reality, in Asia, AIDS wasn't even in the top 10 killers in 2001.

By the way, Prof Chin is discussing his new CFD paper at a lunchtime event on 22nd May in Geneva. Please email if you want more information.

Trade is good for your health, especially if you are poor

Anti-globalists frequently complain that increasing international trade is bad for the poor, as it leaves them at the mercy of international competition and ruthless multinationals.

New findings suggests that increased trade is actually very good for the poor, in particular their health.  Over at the Free Market Foundation, economist Jasson Urbach reports on this evidence that trade improves health through the twin mechanisms of economic growth and technology transfer.

I wrote a study on this theme a couple of years ago. I made the point that the massive increases in global life expectancy that characterised the 20th century were largely down to increased trade - this period saw the global spread of health knowledge such as sanitation, as well as technologies such as vaccinations and antibiotics.

The benefits of the FDA's fast-track ARV approval

Four years ago, the FDA announced it would test and certify as a true generic, for free, any ARV manufactured by a foreign company.  This fast-track certification asks a copy drug to prove that it is bioequivalent to the original drug.  If a copy drug is not bioequivalent, it may act on the body in subtly different ways, increasing the chances of clinical failure and viral mutation.

The FDA announced this fast-track offer at the same time as the WHO's infamous de-listing of 18 ARVs from its prequalification programme in May 2004. The prequalification programme, incidentally, is not a regulatory programme and does not require the same high standards as the FDA. 

This sets a double standard:  drugs approved by WHO prequalification are not demonstrably bioequivalent, and would therefore not be used in developed countries.  So, patients receive these drugs because they are poor rather than because they are sick.

As this briefing note over at the CFD shows, the FDA fast-track approval scheme has gone some way to rectifying this double standard.