Rx for Survival

Rx for Survival website

I saw the first two episodes of the Public Broadcasting System special on global health last night, and recommend the series to everyone.

The first two episodes, perhaps inadvertantly, made a strong case for a stronger governmental role in the development of vaccines and antibiotics. In both cases, profits have been too low to attract major development efforts by the commercial pharmaceutical industry, and technology has lagged.

The Gates Foundation has shown, in the case of anti-malarial drugs, that an insertion of money can have a positive influence on the production of new pharmaceuticals. So too has the Foundation's support for the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative stimulated AIDS vaccine research.

President Bush's initiative to fund the development of tissue culture based processes for the production of flu vaccine (rather than the current process that cultures the virus in eggs) seems a good start in the right direction!

Now, I suspect that we need governments to step forward to stimulate research and development on new antibiotics.