India and the Patent Wars: Pharmaceuticals in the New Intellectual Property Regime

by Murphy Halliburton

Overview

India and the Patent Wars contributes to an international debate over the costs of medicine and restrictions on access under stringent patent laws showing how activists and drug companies in low-income countries seize agency and exert influence over these processes. Murphy Halliburton contributes to analyses of globalization within the fields of anthropology, sociology, law, and public health by drawing on interviews and ethnographic work with pharmaceutical producers in India and the United States.

India has been at the center of emerging controversies around patent rights related to pharmaceutical production and local medical knowledge. Halliburton shows that Big Pharma is not all-powerful, and that local activists and practitioners of ayurveda, India’s largest indigenous medical system, have been able to undermine the aspirations of multinational companies and the WTO. Halliburton traces how key drug prices have gone down, not up, in low-income countries under the new patent regime through partnerships between US- and India-based companies, but warns us to be aware of access to essential medicines in low- and middle-income countries going forward.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501713477
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	11/15/2017
Series:	The Culture and Politics of Health Care Work
Pages:	202
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.30(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Murphy Halliburton is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Queens College and the Graduate Center, CUNY. He is the author of Mudpacks and Prozac.

What People are Saying About This

Michael F. Brown

In India and the Patent Wars, Murphy Halliburton addresses the question of how IP law and trade agreements should deal with sophisticated knowledge systems organized by principles quite unlike those of the West. Halliburton convincingly challenges the conventional view that pits Big Pharma and allopathic medicine against local knowledge-keepers and holistic healing.

Editorial Reviews

Halliburton ably describes the arcana of patent law while at the same time keeping his sights on the daunting, critical stakes of the issue: the continued accessibility of therapeutic know ledge for global public health. For this achievement, India and the Patent Wars is a crucial read for anyone interested in the global politics of health.

-- "Medical Anthropology Quarterly"

From the Publisher

"In India and the Patent Wars, Murphy Halliburton addresses the question of how IP law and trade agreements should deal with sophisticated knowledge systems organized by principles quite unlike those of the West. Halliburton convincingly challenges the conventional view that pits Big Pharma and allopathic medicine against local knowledge-keepers and holistic healing."

Michael F. Brown

Halliburton ably describes the arcana of patent law while at the same time keeping his sights on the daunting, critical stakes of the issue: the continued accessibility of therapeutic know ledge for global public health. For this achievement, India and the Patent Wars is a crucial read for anyone interested in the global politics of health.

Medical Anthropology Quarterly