What resources and tools have you come across to has been helpful to your work? Guides? Websites? Toolkits? Please share these resources here!
What ideas do you have for removing barriers to access health care caused by intellectual property? Please share your thoughts and ideas here!
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I guess at the very least we should have that.
I do think that there are various rulemakings that affect access to health; we could alert one another to them there.
Frank - I think this is a great idea. I know that Universities Allied for Essential Medicines has a facebook page already. Does there exist an over-arching network that practitioners like you can utilize to share updates and news with? If the network already exists - there might be a listserv or something that one could join. If anyone is aware of helpful listservs and networks please share them here!
I am working on proposed amendments to the United Nations Guidelines for Consumer Protection. There is a short section on pharmaceuticals. I'm proposing to add to it some wording on generics. Although the proposed amendments are still in the drafting phase and not yet really open for comments, I mention them as a possible tactic, and link to the Web site (which uses a collaborative commenting system called digress.it) as possible tool.
I found this review of latest research findings on IP and development interesting. there is a section on IP and public health pages 25 to 35.
Last year NYLS held an event called Innovate / Activate which was an unconference on IP and activism. We had a lot of really great discussions that spanned a number of areas (3 panels and almost 30 breakout sessions). We've archived video of the entire event which I think makes for a great resource. Videos are available at: http://www.nyls.edu/innovateactivate.
LinkedIn (in addition to Facebook) might be a good resource to share ideas. Whereas facebook is more casual-social, LinkedIn could provide a more professional platform on which to share ideas and successful techniques. LinkedIn allows you to create groups in which you can create posts and start conversations and anyone can chime in. Kind of like this dialogue, actually.
It's widely used by the other side. I'm lurking on a LinkedIn group for the World Copyright Summit in which notices are posted about the "relentless fight against digital piracy", how great ACTA will be, and that how French ISPs sending "a mere" 2,000 warning emails daily to downloaders is "not moving fast enough". It's hilarious and terrifying at the same time.
PIJIP's medicines related materials are at:
http://www.wcl.american.edu/pijip/go/research-and-advocacy/access-to-med...
We have some online curriculums on Huamn Rights and access to meds at:
http://www.wcl.american.edu/pijip/go/additionalmaterials
and
http://www.wcl.american.edu/pijip/go/humanrights
Thanks, Sean! These are great resources. I just wanted to share the breadth of information that can be found on the PIJIP website (specifically the page on the background on human rights obligations and access to medicine):
I have a lot of reading to do!
I suppose it should be pointed out to those new in the field that joining IP-health email list is a must. You can find the link at keionline.org
Also the A2K list which is at keionline.org too.
The MSF Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines also has a newsletter that anyone can subscribe to:
http://www.msfaccess.org/resources/newsletter/
UAEM has a lot of resources on our web site. From how to reach out to the media to in depth policy discussions. There are also a number of presentations that can be utilized as intros for students or others wanting to present on access to medicines.
http://essentialmedicine.org/chapters/resources
http://essentialmedicine.org/our-work/publications
http://essentialmedicine.org/archive
Along the line of info sources, I'd like to throw in a mention of our coverage of international public health policy as it relates to IP, which can be seen here: http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/category/themes/public-health/.
I think we have an advantage of being not only informed about the underlying issues, but read and respected as balanced by all sides, for whatever that's worth!
Our stories are interactive and on Twitter and FB, but we'd be interested in creating a platform for discussions to take place, which puts them in front of the key policymakers and stakeholders worldwide. (eg, think WIPO has hired a former pharma exec to advise them on global issues as they try to move in on public health issues, and they have an institutional subscription to IP-Watch). So we welcome ideas for a platform, and as always, we welcome story ideas and outside contributions to our opinion column!
On this, those who haven't seen it already might like to read my organisation's publication from a few years ago called "Drugs, Doctors and Dinners: How drug companies influence health in the developing world". You can download a copy from http://www.consumersinternational.org/media/311707/drugs,%20doctors%20an....
There has also been a lot of success in building alliances between the human rights and A2K movements on the issue of access to medicines. I've written about the relationship between the human rights and A2K movements here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1295448. It might be useful to consider building on the success of the collaboration in the area of access to medicines by focusing on issues such as access to health information and to an informed healthcare provider.
What about using Vimeo as a resource to share information? It seems to be a bit more professional than YouTube and you can search by groups, etc. I just looked on the site now and there are over 3000 groups registered with Vimeo in the “Activism & Non Profits” category.
http://vimeo.com/groups/all/category:activism
NYLS runs a program called Peer To Patent in cooperation with the USPTO. The program allows the public to participate in the examination of pending patent applications. While currently somewhat limited in scope, Peer To Patent was recently expanded to include patent applications in the areas of biotechnology and biopharmaceuticals. It provides the public with the opportunity to put evidence before a patent examiner that might be relevant to the patentability of a claimed invention. It's a small step forward for improving patent quality as it gives the public the ability to knock out non-meritorious claimed inventions before a patent issues:
http://www.peertopatent.org
I believe twitter is also a good tool to get the word around of what diferent organizations/persons accross the globe are doing in the subject of A2M. For instance New Tactics found be because I've followed UAEM twitter :p If we could exchange twitter accounts that are relevant for A2M it would be great!
Yes it's true! I found Francisco and the GTPI folks through Twitter! :) It can be a great organizing tool.
It's a great idea to collect twitter accounts related to this topic, Francisco! I thought I'd share a few of the people/groups that tweet about health, meds and intellectual property:
We don't write much about access to healthcare and IP activism, but we share lots of great resources that are useful to people working on many different issues. Please stay connected to us through Twitter - http://twitter.com/newtactics
Uhul! there is a lot of good information here, I have to take some time to read all that is being shared. From our part there is our website
http://www.deolhonaspatentes.org.br/default.asp?idiomaId=2
(this is the english version) I recommend the publications page where you can find very good information.
Actually this is a 'baby website' (with only six months), and i'm working hard to improve it. So, feel free to give me your advices, suggestions, critics
Aditionally, we have this south-south cooperation hotsite. (you can read it in sapanish, english and portuguese)
http://www.patentes.org.br/sulsul/
This is something we really would like to boost. The idea is not so origianal but we want to make it a strong space of collaboration, not only between southern organizations, but for everyone concerned about acces to medecines in developing countries. I'm totally open to receive your inputs about how this could work better. For the moment, this hotsite is based manly on news regarding coopperations efforts, or other news regarding events in the so called "global south". To go further than this, our aim is to stablish a growing network of partners and than promote joint actions. I think this dialogue is a great start for this network, so Ethan, dr. Gopal and everybody else plese feel free to get in touch with GTPI
we would love to receive news about your moves, concerns, opinions
Please find me on:
felipe[at]abiaids.org.br
Cheers!