Do drug companies deserve praise today?
| 17:22 UK time, Monday, 6 June 2011
This topic was discussed on 6 June, 2011. Listen to the programme.
This blog post was written by Mahfuz and posted by me.
A lot of you are talking about the have agreed to significantly reduce their prices for vaccines in developing countries.
The price reduction is part of an effort to provide supplies for the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation.
Despite the assurance of price reduction, there is still in for vaccinations all the way to 2015, and this latest decision is part of the effort to plug that gap.
Miscrosoft founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda, who are involved in public health through their Foundation, : "We're particularly excited about the offers for rotavirus vaccine because the shock of learning that more than 500,000 children die each year from a preventable disease that causes severe diarrhea is what drew us to work in global health in the first place".
Some are sceptical though. @fauxstellata ‎tweeted: "#Glaxo have just cut the price of a diarrohea vaccine by 95% and not in an attempt to influence share prices. Finally nice capitalism?"
While others, such as Princeton University academic , are objecting to the lack of debate around Gavi's vaccine funding strategy: "I think the taxpayers of affluent countries and their leaders should support saving poor children and reducing global poverty but this is a moment when they could critically review how that money is being spent."
Dr Light argues: "The Gavi model depends on giving more and more money year after year to get vaccines to poor countries in ways that are not self-sustaining and at prices that are unaffordable."
Well, what do you think? We hope to have drug company executives, those affected or benefited by the price reduction and those who are questioning goodwill of this move.
