Patently absurd

Law | Drug companies and their patents are not the enemies in the war against AIDS | Stewart Rutledge

Now that the HIV/AIDS pandemic has killed over 25 million people, with 40 million more still living with it, the search for guilty parties intensifies. While individual responsibility in most cases of getting and transmitting HIV/AIDS cannot be denied, the big culprits, according to a legion of activists, are patent regulation, "big drug companies," and international trade agreements.

Africa in particular has become the test case. While sub-Saharan Africa has only slightly more than 10 percent of the world's population, it claims over two-thirds of the world's HIV infections, and 77 percent of the female infections. Some activists say that patents held by large pharmaceutical companies are the primary obstacles to widespread treatment of HIV/AIDS in Africa.