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Article: Race for the cure. (Political Booknotes).
- Article from:
- The Washington Monthly
- Article date:
- May 1, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Washington Monthly Company. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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THE FEVER TRAIL: In Search of the Cure For Malaria by Mark Honigsbaum Farrar Straus Giroux, $25.00
IN THE LATE '90S, RELATIONS between African nations and American pharmaceutical companies were roiled by arguments that exclusive American patents on expensive AIDS drugs were leading to thousands of deaths in AIDS-plagued Third World nations that couldn't afford the treatments. Meanwhile, cheaper generic versions of the anti-viral drugs were being manufactured in Brazil and India. South Africa led the charge against the Americans by announcing it would ignore the patents and import the generics; the pharmaceutical firms cried foul and sued to retain rights to their ...