Society for Medical Anthropology

Special Interest Groups: Academic Resources

• Science, Technology, and Medicine

research tools

• How to investigate the use of medicines by consumers (pdf) from the WHO, University of Amsterdam, and Royal Tropical Institute
• Public health, innovation and intellectual property rights from the WHO
• The World Medicines Situation (pdf 1052KB)
• Essential Drugs and Medicines Policy, WHO
• Intellectual Property Watch
  Original, open-access news and analysis on international IP policymaking.
• Medicine Prices: a new approach to measurement
  In May 2003 Health Action International (HAI) and the World Health Organization Department of Essential Drugs and Medicines Policy published a working draft of a manual to collect and analyse the prices people pay for a selection of important medicines, as well as identifying price components (taxes, mark-ups etc.) and the affordability and availability of key medicines. Below is all the information needed to conduct a survey, plus data from surveys already undertaken using the manual (both as individual survey profiles and a database of results).
• MSH: International Drug Price Indicator Guide
  The International Drug Price Indicator Guide allows you to search for drugs using several criteria (name, letter, therapeutic class), and to select a currency and a specific year.
• The International Network for Rational Use of Drugs (INRUD)
• PharmWeb: pharmaceutical information on the internet plus special interest pages
• Promoting Rational Drug Use - A CD-ROM Training Program
  Hosted by Boston University School of Public Health, this website contains complete PRDU course materials that you can download to your computer.
• Pie-chart of the global pharmaceutical market, 2002 ($406 billion)
  from the presentation, "Compulsory Licensing and Parallel Imports will improve Access to AIDS Drugs," Richard Laing, Boston University School of Public Health.
• Medicine Guides
  The Medicine Guides website provides free access to up-to-date, comprehensive and reliable information about prescription and over-the-counter medicines available in the UK.
• Counterfeit medicines in less developed countries: Problems and solutions, Julian Morris and Philip Stevens, International Policy Network
• Eldis resource guide: Access to medicines
• useful links -- Pharmaceutical Policy and Programming in Developing Countries, Boston School of Public Health

policy

• World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki (html | pdf)
  
• Erice Declaration of the Ethical Principles of Pharmacogenetic Research (html)
  
• Uppsala Declaration on Nuclear Weapon-Free Zones (html)

TRIPS

• World Trade Organization: Implementation of paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and public health.
  
• Decision of the General Council of 30 August 2003 Editorial: New deal from the World Trade Organisation may not provide essential medicines for poor countries. British Medical Journal 2003;327:571-572 (13 September). Patent Exception for Exports to Address Health Needs -- from the Consumer Project on Technology
  
• Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines -- Médicins sans Frontières
  
• Patents and Medicine -- from the Health Gap Global Access Project
  
• government and regulatory bodies -- from PharmWeb

bibliographies

• bibliography from the International Network for Rational Use of Drugs (INRUD)
  
• bibliography -- compiled by Molly Ryan, Fall 1997, for the Human Rights Center: Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
  
• A Collection of Articles on Disease Mongering in PLoS Medicine

syllabi

• Drugs, Politics and Culture, Hugh Gusterson, MIT, Spring 1998
  
• Anthropology of Pharmaceutical Practice and the Pharmaceutical Industry, Mark Nichter, Anthropology and International Health, University of Arizona, Spring 2002 (Word document) more
• College Courses in Drugs and Drug Policy - from the Drug Policy Alliance

online discussions

• E-Drug -- hosted by SatelLife
  
• E-Drug -- E-Drug Archives: all 10 years of E-drug existence
  
• international mailing lists -- from PharmWeb
  
• international discussion groups -- from PharmWeb
  
• national discussion groups -- from PharmWeb
• pharmacy-related newsgroups -- from PharmWeb