Brazil gets 40% cut on AIDS drugs

[Brad DeLong]

>So this whole thing about AIDs patents, in the end, amounts to Brazil hard
>bargaining and finally getting a lower price. Here then is the power of a
>state and the way it surpassess what even the most militant and active
>activist group can achieve. ACT UP has demanded lower prices and never
>gotten a cut like this.
>

More important, I think, is that Brazil has a strong moral case and 
ACT-UP doesn't. Brazil is a poor country with lots of sick people who 
have no chance of finding anyone to pay first-world prices for drugs. 
The U.S. AIDS-afflicted population lives in the richest country in 
the world.

There is a strong argument that charging first-world prices for AIDS 
drugs in Brazil does nothing other than make more people die faster. 
There is an equally strong argument that if we want to see faster 
medical progress we shouldn't be in the business of trying to curb 
the profits pharmaceutical companies make in the first world...

Brad DeLong