We asked pharmacist Lucy Sheppard for her thoughts on FIRE IN THE BLOOD. She asks, “isn’t prevention better than cure?” What do you think? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!
There’s little doubt that the worldwide HIV/AIDS epidemic is a tragedy and that better access to life-saving treatment would be a good thing, especially in developing countries. However, I’m not entirely convinced that the David-versus-Goliath situation as described in the emotive documentary FIRE IN THE BLOOD is quite as clear cut as it seems.
The film argues that pharmaceutical companies, Western governments and NGOs – in order to protect their intellectual property, profit margins and pride – are conspiring to restrict access to the powerful antiretroviral drugs which have proved so effective against the disease since the mid 1990s. Are millions of sufferers really being deprived out of malice, as suggested in the tag line to the film?
Speaking as a scientist myself, I’ve seen how patent laws provide both the incentive and protection that industry needs to invest the vast quantities of time and money spent in the development of new drugs. FIRE IN THE BLOOD presents some salient, if somewhat repetitive and unbalanced, points concerning global morality and responsibility.
But when I’m told about an Asian husband knowingly infecting his reluctant wife, or eight siblings from the same African family being diagnosed as HIV positive, I have to ask: surely it’s all a bit more complicated than that? Isn’t prevention better than cure?
This comment left me wondering whether Lucy Sheppard had actually seen the film.
Sheppard writes: “The film argues that pharmaceutical companies, Western governments and NGOs […] are conspiring to restrict access to the powerful antiretroviral drugs which have proved so effective against the disease since the mid 1990s.” In fact, the film uses the story of the battle for access to HIV drugs to illustrate the shocking callousness of governments and corporations driven by commercial interests and indifferent to the many millions of lives needlessly lost to HIV/AIDS during the late 1990s and early 2000s in Africa and other parts of the developing world. While it is of course true that millions of lives have been saved by these drugs in the intervening years — primarily thanks to the efforts of those depicted in the film who fought AGAINST the aforementioned parties — the film serves as a warning that the lessons of this cataclysm have still not been learned. Access for HIV drugs is indeed massively expanded thanks to the heroes of the film, but the outlook for the future access to medicine remains bleak, especially for other categories of drugs lacking the ‘bully pulpit’ of HIV/AIDS. Ms. Sheppard’s summary thus fundamentally mischaracterizes the argument of the film, one suspects in order to make it seem irrelevant. She also claims the film accuses NGOs of being part of this conspiracy, though I for one certainly have no recollection of that anywhere in the narrative.
Ms. Sheppard also says “I’ve seen how patent laws provide both the incentive and protection that industry needs to invest the vast quantities of time and money spent in the development of new drugs”, although the filmmaker spends considerable screen time persuasively debunking the carefully-constructed fiction of high drug prices being necessary to fund drug companies’ huge expenditures on R&D… in reality their marketing and advertising budgets are FAR bigger than their research budgets, the VAST majority of funding for drug discovery comes from taxpayer money, and in any case a system which deprives the overwhelming majority of the world’s people of life-saving drugs which can be very cheaply produced is hardly defensible.
This “review” finishes by asking what one can only assume is a rhetorical question, namely “Isn’t prevention better than cure?” Does she mean to ask if it wouldn’t be better if people never contracted preventable diseases? What the point of this facile query might be is anyone’s guess, but there is more than a hint of a suggestion here that these people only have themselves to blame for getting infected with HIV.
Naturally it would be wonderful if nobody were ever infected with HIV or any other disease, and of course everything possible should be done to prevent new infections. But who is arguing this point? Possibly only the drug companies which make billions selling drugs for astronomical profits…
This is a nonsensical review (probably intended more as a hatchet job) of an exceptionally strong, rigorously reasoned documentary which I would strongly encourage everyone to see.
This comment left me wondering whether Lucy Sheppard had actually
seen the film.
Sheppard writes: “The film argues that pharmaceutical companies, Western governments and
NGOs […] are conspiring to restrict access to the powerful antiretroviral
drugs which have proved so effective against the disease since the mid
1990s.” In fact, the film
uses the story of the battle for access to HIV drugs to illustrate the shocking
callousness of governments and corporations driven by commercial interests and
indifferent to the many millions of lives needlessly lost to HIV/AIDS during
the late 1990s and early 2000s in Africa and other parts of the developing
world. While it is of course true
that millions of lives have been saved by these drugs in the intervening years
— primarily thanks to the efforts of those depicted in the film who fought
AGAINST the aforementioned parties — the film serves as a warning that the
lessons of this cataclysm have still not been learned. Access for HIV drugs is indeed
massively expanded thanks to the heroes of the film, but the outlook for the
future access to medicine remains bleak, especially for other categories of
drugs lacking the ‘bully pulpit’ of HIV/AIDS. Ms. Sheppard’s summary thus fundamentally mischaracterizes
the argument of the film, one suspects in order to make it seem irrelevant. She also claims the film accuses NGOs
of being part of this conspiracy, though I for one certainly have no
recollection of that anywhere in the narrative.
Ms. Sheppard also says “I’ve seen how patent laws provide both the
incentive and protection that industry needs to invest the vast quantities of
time and money spent in the development of new drugs”, although the
filmmaker spends considerable screen time persuasively debunking the carefully-constructed
fiction of high drug prices being necessary to fund drug companies’ huge
expenditures on R&D… in reality their marketing and advertising budgets
are FAR bigger than their research budgets, the VAST majority of funding for
drug discovery comes from taxpayer money, and in any case a system which
deprives the overwhelming majority of the world’s people of life-saving drugs
which can be very cheaply produced is hardly defensible.
This “review” finishes by asking what one can only assume is a
rhetorical question, namely “Isn’t prevention better than cure?” Does she mean to ask if it
wouldn’t be better if people never contracted preventable diseases? What the point of this facile query
might be is anyone’s guess, but there is more than a hint of a suggestion here
that these people only have themselves to blame for getting infected with HIV.
Naturally it would be wonderful if nobody were ever infected with HIV or
any other disease, and of course everything possible should be done to prevent
new infections. But who is arguing
this point? Possibly only the drug
companies which make billions selling drugs for astronomical profits…
This is a nonsensical
review (probably intended more as a hatchet job) of an exceptionally strong,
rigorously reasoned documentary which I would strongly encourage everyone to
see.
You make the mistake of assuming it’s a review. Not everything written about a film is automatically a “review”. It’s filed under ‘Features’ and is clearly flagged up as a discussion starting point. It’s no more a ‘hatchet job’ than your own rather reactionary post.
Secondly – “there is more than a hint of a suggestion here that these people only have themselves to blame for getting infected with HIV” is completely wrong. That’s your own mistaken assumption. The implication is educating people about HIV is contracted is better than throwing anti-retrovirals at the problem.
Jeff, I completely agree it isn’t a review, but it does make key representations about this film which in my opinion are completely wrong…
I also have never in my life heard anyone argue against the idea that “prevention is better than cure” or contend that stopping people getting diseases is not preferable to treating them after they have contracted them… have you? The film certainly suggests nothing of the sort.
Granted, but I think she’s indicating the focus is wrong, in her opinion (the word ‘opinion’ being the key one), rather than it argues the opposite.
I really do think it’s rather artful claiming this is a hatchet job – what motivation would anyone covering a film festival have for doing a hatchet job on a film?