You've heard all the statistics before.
Thirty-nine million people worldwide were living with HIV or AIDS in 2006. Nearly two-thirds of those were in sub-Saharan Africa.
There are effective HIV treatments that allow those with the virus to lead productive, relatively healthy lives. It's just that those treatments are so expensive that few in the First World can afford them, let alone those in the world's poorest nations.
Right here at Penn, we have the power to change that.
And an organization called Universities Allied for Essential Medicines is showing us exactly how much.
This group of dedicated students says that the University can make a tangible change in the lives of millions of impoverished people. I'm not talking about giving money to some distant charity. Penn itself has the ability to get medicines to those who need them most.
Before you tune out, it may be less complicated that it seems.
Penn doctors invent life-saving drugs. Penn is committed to global justice. The intersection of these two facts is clear: We need to change the way medicine gets to impoverished countries.
Penn's chapter of UAEM wants to improve the University's process of licensing medicines to pharmaceutical companies. When a researcher at Penn Medicine develops a new drug, he will usually sell the technology to a company that can produce and sell it - often at astronomical prices.
UAEM targets the specific licensing step. If research universities band together, the group argues, they can write their demands - like affordable prices in the world's poorest nations - into licensing contracts.
"With advances in medical technology, we have a legitimate expectation that a child can live to be 80 or more years. And that would be normal," said Scott Kaplan, a first-year Penn Law student and a spokesman for the national organization. "This is now something that we take for granted and that everyone should take for granted."
If one university calls for a change, the pharmaceuticals will go to another. But if they all work with one another, universities can refuse to license any new drugs unless pharmaceutical companies promise to market them at a reasonable cost in developing countries.
UAEM supports something called "equitable-access licensing," which essentially forces first world businesses to sell companies in the developing world the right to distribute generic versions of their drugs. It won't even hurt profits in the first world, since pharmaceutical markets in developing nations are almost entirely untapped.
Penn bioethicist Jonathan Merz, an expert on legal questions in medicine, says it can work - universities just have to stand up to the pharmaceutical companies and change the status quo.
That's exactly what UAEM is fighting for. Next Wednesday, the group is holding a national day of action along with chapters at other research universities around the country.
Students will wear shirts that say "Our Labs. Our Drugs. Our Responsibility," and UAEM leaders will hold a teach-in. All of it is designed to spread the word that the global health crisis isn't an unsolvable problem, and right here we have the ability to help.
University President Amy Gutmann has balked on taking a stance on this issue. Like everyone with a conscience, she supports UAEM's mission of more affordable medicines.
But Gutmann, like many in the Medical School, is afraid of disrupting the delicate symbiosis Penn has with pharmaceutical companies.
"I think the goal of providing life-saving medicine to the developing world is a laudable goal," Gutmann said. "Whether the proposed means will actually succeed in achieving that goal is questionable. . You can't force pharmaceutical companies to sign agreements."
You can if every other major research university is working with you.
This is why it is crucial we show Gutmann and other administrators that this is something we care about. Send a letter to Gutmann and Provost Ron Daniels challenging them to quit talking and start acting.
Sign on to UAEM's Web site and sign their petition. You'll see your name alongside Nobel Prize winners and major global activists like Jeffrey Sachs and Paul Farmer. Stop by UAEM's spot on Locust Walk next Wednesday and get involved.
We have the medicine to cure some of the world's deadliest diseases. But we also have an obligation to make them affordable.
Mara Gordon is a College junior from Washington, D.C. Her e-mail address is gordon@dailypennsylvanian.com. Flash Gordon appears on Thursdays.
