Economists are right when they point out that there is no such thing as a free lunch. The same could be said about AIDS drugs.
That hasn’t stopped the Brazilian government from hoping out loud that it can, like a magician, fabricate free AIDS drugs out of nothin—or at least mandate cheaper AIDS drugs.
So that its government AIDS program will be able to buy drugs cheaper, the government in Brasilia is threatening to break the patents on five AIDS drugs made by international pharmaceutical companies. Breaking the patents, the thinking goes, will allow local companies to make the drugs, already available free to AIDS patients in Brazil, cheaper.
Sound good? Think again. Consider Ranbaxy, a pharmaceutical company in India that makes knockoff drugs.
The company recently recalled its generic AIDS drugs for quality reasons. Cipla, another Indian pharmaceutical company, has had its drugs removed from the World Health Organization’s list of approved drugs.
There is no small amount of irony here. When the brand name companies were warning that these combination AIDS drugs had not been tested and might be unsafe, they were hooted down by liberals, the health care socialists and the media as only trying to protect their profits.
When the Indian companies pulled their products, you could have heard a pin drop. No apologies, no mea culpas. Silence.
As the serious health officials warn repeatedly: if the poor with AIDS get substandard, compromised or untested drugs, or take them in an inappropriate manner, it will only exacerbate the AIDS problem by creating a resistance to the drugs.
Poor populations need access to affordable drugs. But they shouldn’t get untested or second-rate drugs just because they are poor—and just because some country says it can break patents and provide the drugs at a lower cost.