1st Edition

Pharmaceutical Autonomy and Public Health in Latin America State, Society and Industry in Brazil’s AIDS Program

By Matthew B. Flynn Copyright 2015
252 Pages
by Routledge

252 Pages
by Routledge

252 Pages
by Routledge

Brazil has occupied a central role in the access to medicines movement, especially with respect to drugs used to treat those with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). How and why Brazil succeeded in overcoming powerful political and economic interests, both at home and abroad, to roll-out and sustain treatment represents an... Read more

Selected Contents: Introduction: Access to AIDS Medicines, Public Health, and the Brazilian Solution  1. Pharmaceutical Autonomy: Technology, Alliances and Norms  2. Elements of Global Pharmaceutical Power  3. The Brazilian Context: Contradictions between Democracy and Neoliberalism  4. Asserting Antiretroviral Autonomy (1992-2002)  5. Patent Power and the Limits of Treatment Activism Autonomy (2003-2006)  6. Consolidating the Pharmaceutical Alliance (2007-2013)  Conclusion

Biography

Matthew B. Flynn is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and International Studies at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Georgia. His research focuses on the political economy of pharmaceuticals in contemporary society.

"This wonderful book chronicles Brazil's efforts to expand access to AIDS drugs in the face of a challenging and, at times, unforgiving external environment. Flynn's detailed research, including extensive interviews with key players, shows how dynamic interaction between actors in the Brazilian state, civil society, and pharmaceutical industry contributed to the country's efforts to secure 'pharmaceutical autonomy.' Much has been written about Brazil's policies to combat HIV/AIDS. Flynn's book provides fresh insights with its focus on how activist health professionals (sanitaristas), gained prominence in key state agencies, and in doing so promoted a universalistic, comprehensive, and rights-based vision of health." —Ken Shadlen, London School of Economics