The documentary “Fire in the Blood” directed by Dylan Gray is a shocking expose of pharmaceutical companies which use patent laws to keep profits extremely high even at the cost of so many lives. Giving priority to the company’s profits over the betterment of the people, they didn’t provide affordable ARV’s to the patients. Millions died due to AIDS in Africa when medicines could have been made available to them. Even when the medicines were affordable and many lives would have been saved, the western pharmaceuticals lobby made it impossible. Advertised with the tag line “medicine monopoly malice”, it talks of how big Western pharmaceutical companies block the access to low-cost anti-AIDS drugs for the world’s poorest, causing a holocaust of 10 million deaths. …show more content…
Cipla's generic inexpensive antiretroviral drugs were a true game changer. Lives that were considered lost were being saved.
It also talks of the efforts of Western government, working on behalf of industry to hinder and cut off supplies of affordable generic drugs by the means of bi-lateral and multilateral trade agreements which low and middle income countries are placed under enormous pressure to sign. High prices are the only trade off for industries that spend a large amount on R & D to find new medicines.
Formation of cartels can also be seen in the movie. The multinational drug companies and the Western governments collaborated in order to keep the low cost generic AIDS drugs out of the reach of poor countries.
There is an effective role of media. Due to its presence, people are aware of all the internal and external matters taking place in the society. It can also be seen as misguiding when it shows that an ad stating that generic drugs are not efficient and can have adverse effects on one’s health. It also highlights all that lobbying can do to people and the