Dec. 1 marks the 20th annual World AIDS Day. On that day and the week preceding it, we at UCLA take time to recognize the tragic toll that AIDS has inflicted upon the world, our country and even our own campus. But beyond mere recognition of the AIDS tragedy, I want to focus on what we ““ the UCLA family ““ can do about it.
UCLA and other influential research institutions hold the key to a crucial element of HIV/AIDS treatment: drugs. As the discoverers and patent holders of life-saving drugs, universities have immense leverage over how those drugs are marketed and used around the world.
One of the greatest success stories of a university taking responsibility over how a drug was used is the story of stavudine at Yale University. Stavudine is an AIDS drug developed at and patented by Yale, and in 2001 it cost over $1600 per patient per year for treatment. Yale students, alerted to how unaffordable stavudine was in Africa by Doctors Without Borders, approached and convinced the university administration to allow the drug to be produced generically.
Through their efforts, the Yale community convinced the university administration to lower African stavudine prices over 30-fold. Today, stavudine costs a patient less than $50 per year in Africa.
As members of UCLA, we must make sure that important breakthroughs in HIV and AIDS treatment discovered right here in our laboratories are used for the benefit of those who need it the most.
Notable and recent discoveries made by UCLA researchers and the patents of which are held by UCLA include a novel HIV entry inhibitor and a new broad-spectrum antiviral that prevents infection of HIV and other lipid-enveloped viruses.
Such discoveries, as well as the important multidisciplinary work of the UCLA AIDS Institute, are just as life-saving to the poor as they are to those who can afford expensive drugs. How can we stand to deny any person access to such essential medicines?
It is unforgivable that the world’s poorest HIV and AIDS patients and their families must suffer for lack of access to expensive, yet existent, drugs for antiretroviral treatment and palliative care.
In 2007, only 31 percent of the estimated global need for antiretroviral treatment was being met in low-income and middle-income countries. Out of all this, children suffer the most. In sub-Saharan Africa, children living with HIV are one-third as likely to receive antiretroviral therapy as adults.
And if current trends continue, the problem of drug costs is only going to get worse.
The World Health Organization predicts that the cost of HIV and AIDS treatment will keep increasing as patients currently on treatment will eventually need access to second- and third-line treatments, and as disease management becomes more complex for those who have never been treated.
UCLA’s mission statement states that our “primary purpose as a public research university is the creation, dissemination, preservation and application of knowledge for the betterment of our global society.” We, the members of this living institution, have the responsibility to uphold these values. Don’t forget ““ never forget ““ that there is something we can do about the AIDS tragedy.
Like the students of Yale University in 2001, we have the voice and the power to make life-saving medicines available for the poorest of the world’s poor.
As a leader in HIV/AIDS research and discovery, UCLA must now become a leader in HIV/AIDS equality in treatment for all. These are our labs. These are our drugs. This is our responsibility. Let’s change the world, UCLA.
Lin is a first-year law school student at UCLA and a member of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines.