Elizabeth Fenton, Ph.D.

Harvard University Program in Ethics and Health

Seminar TopicAccess to Pharmaceuticals: Human Rights, Corporate Responsibilities, and Intellectual Property 
It has been widely claimed that the lack of access of the world’s poor to pharmaceuticals, and the millions of consequent deaths from preventable and treatable diseases, constitutes a grave human rights violation.  To the extent that this violation occurs due to institutions, like the international patent regime, in which we all participate, the obligation of reform falls on all of us.  Thomas Pogge and others have recently published a report setting out the Health Impact Fund, a fund that would reward pharmaceutical companies for their part in reducing the global burden of disease.  This fund would ultimately be paid for by taxpayers in wealthy or developed countries.  To what extent do pharmaceutical companies have any obligation, absenting financial incentives such as those provided by the Health Impact Fund, to work towards reducing the global burden of disease?  How much of the financial burden of such work should they be required to meet?  How ought the human right to essential medicines be balanced against other human rights, such as the right to protection of one’s intellectual property?  In this seminar we will engage with key issues in the health and human rights debate, including the philosophical grounding of human rights claims, how to adjudicate between competing claims, and the pressing issue of where to place the obligations for meeting those claims. 

To learn more about Dr. Elizabeth Fenton click here
: http://peh.harvard.edu/fenton.html