Margaret Grieco - Gender and health – March 2006 1

http://design-and-determination.com/gender-health.html

Gender and health: a social Gender and health: a social movements’ agenda for Big Pharmamovements’ agenda for Big Pharma

Margaret Grieco,Margaret Grieco,Professor of Transport and Society, Napier University Professor of Transport and Society, Napier University

and and Salaried Visiting Full Professor, Cornell UniversitySalaried Visiting Full Professor, Cornell University

Email: Email: m.grieco@napier.ac.uk mg294@cornell.edu

Margaret Grieco - Gender and health – March 2006 2

1. Introduction: health, gender and the globalizing of knowledge

Not one of the chief scientists or heads of research at any of the major pharmaceutical companies is a woman. Why that's the case is much less clear. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/309/5735/724

International People’s Health University, Nicaragua http://www.iphcglobal.org/iphu.org/

one of its courses http://www.iphcglobal.org/iphu.org/curseinfo.htm• On-line activist health personnel linked to universities provide one

form of new social action in health, http://www.globalaidsalliance.org/cd_action.cfm

• global social movements around meeting the challenge of AIDS/HIV provide another

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Social justice issues have been firmly placed on the Big Pharma agenda

In this context, Big Pharma has come under challenge• http://www.naturalhealthcoalition.ca/big_pharma.htm

The regulation of food supplements undermines the unregulated

traditional health space of ‘wise women’ • http://www.newswithviews.com/Howenstine/james24.htm

• http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/dscodex.html

• http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2005/07/12/european_court_decides_food_supplements_directive_may_go_ahead.htm

Social movements around gender and health are now a feature of the modern political scene• http://www.igtn.org/pdfs/186_Dec02bulletin.pdf

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2. HIV/AIDS: from pricing out survival to ensuring gender equity in provision.

HIV/AIDS drugs remain highly cost prohibitive• pharmaceutical companies refuse to grant licenses to allow generic drugs

to be produced, which would significantly reduce prices and increase access to lifesaving medications. http://www.globalaidsalliance.org/cd_action.cfm

Major Big Pharma player as US Global AIDS Coordinator• http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/26580.htm

HIV/AIDS as women’s disease within Africa• for example, there are particular features of the female body which make

women more vulnerable to the disease http://web.cortland.edu/wagadu/issue2/lesetedi.html

Center For Gender and Health Equity submission to US Global AIDS coordinator on the web• see Gender, AIDS, and ARV Therapies: Ensuring that Women Gain

Equitable Access to Drugs within U.S. Funded Treatment Initiatives http://www.genderhealth.org/pubs/TreatmentAccessFeb2004.pdf

• microbicides as a technology which would particularly benefit women in the context of HIV/AIDS also advocated by the International Community of Women Living with AIDS

• http://www.icw.org/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=25

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The social movement pressure to lower the prices of critical drugs and to extend coverage of HIV/AIDS treatment by the direct lobbying Big Pharma • http://www.afrol.com/html/Categories/Health/backgr_medicine_poverty.htm

Influence of lobbying via governments and international institutions. • the pressure to discard unjust international arrangements in the

context of regional health crises grows http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/10/ftaa1029-bck.htm

• the protection of patents at the cost of public health, including women’s health, becomes increasingly unacceptable http://www.avert.org/generic.htm

• http://www.icw.org/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=198

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3 A directable market?:the medicalisation of ‘women’s problems’

H. Hartley "Big Pharma" in our bedrooms: an analysis of the medicalization of women's sexual problems• http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/bookdescription.cws_home/680869/descripti

on#description The growing health burden caused by the continued massive

selling of sickness -- and of harmful drugs. • http://www.naturalhealthcoalition.ca/big_pharma.htm

Hot flush for Big Pharma• http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/327/7411/400

History of Depo Provera • http://www.journalism.ubc.ca/thunderbird/2005.03/features/depoprovera.html

• http://www.abcinternetmarketing.com/depo-provera/links.html Blockbuster medicalisation of women’s biology

• http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/330/7484/192

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4. Engulfing the alternative: the battle of the supplements

Folk practices harnessed as product under patent• http://www.bayeraspirin.com/questions/hundred_aspirin.htm

Breaking the Pattern – the San people and hoodia• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2883087.stm

Food supplements under international regulation• http://www.standardprocess.com/lit/Other/05_0727_CodexAndDS.

Revised.pdf

http://www.newswithviews.com/Howenstine/james24.htm

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5. Conclusion: purchasing authority

Tension and contradictions in the academy • http://www.commondreams.org/news2006/0222-05.htm

Further links on this topic:• http://www.biopsychiatry.com/bigpharma/academia-money.html• http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2005/12/more-summary-and-much-

documentation-of.html• http://www.biopsychiatry.com/bigpharma/academia-money2.html

“A pharmaceutical giant has promised to give a full guarantee of independence to academic researchers whose work it funds in a move that follows widespread concern over the company's handling of a major UK drugs study”. • http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1718179,00.html