Access to life-saving medicines is inadequate in many developing countries. Approximately 1.3 to 2.1 billion people worldwide lack adequate access to essential medicines. According to studies conducted in 2011, approximately one third of the world’s population has inadequate access to essential medicines. Only 10 percent of funding from development and pharmaceutical research programs goes to medical problems, which accounts for 90 percent of the world’s burden of disease. A small number of companies dominate global drug production and trade. Ten global companies are responsible for almost half of all sales.
However, “unequal access to essential medicines is unequal access to health care. 30 In 2011, the expert commission on access to medicines noted that “the right to health care is directly proportional to access to medicines. The issue of research and development of new medicines for diseases that are considered a burden for developing countries remains unresolved.
High cost is another impeding factor in ensuring access to medicines. Companies developing new drugs often obtain a patent that grants permission to a single drug manufacturer for a certain period of time. The Panel on Access to Medicines explains it this way: given the fact that intellectual property rights affect the material incentive to innovate, they can, in some cases, impede access to medicines by increasing their cost. The right to health requires the company holding the patent on a life-saving drug to do everything possible to provide access to the drug to everyone who wants it. Access to essential medicines is considered an integral part of the right to health. However, 60 countries do not recognize the right to health as a constitutional right and more than 30 countries have not ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. General Comment 14 declares that countries must make health care facilities open and accessible, including ensuring the availability of essential medicines “in accordance with the WHO Action Programme on Essential Drugs.
Practices Existing in Health and Human Rights Today
The methods for applying human rights to health are different and are used at different levels: at the governmental level and through the involvement of private organizations. The general approach involves human rights norms in health care, which are introduced through the development of a code or declaration on the rights of the patient. It is important to remember that this approach does not encompass the full range of rights and responsibilities relating to all participants in legal relations in the sphere of health care. However, the development of patient rights is based on human rights standards and principles and is considered an important step in describing the rights and responsibilities of patients in relation to health care providers.
Bioethics is considered to be another tool that contains elements of human rights in health care. The definition of “bioethics” remains controversial, but in general the field reveals ethical issues arising in science, medicine and technology. Bioethics often addresses moral and ethical issues of medical and scientific research, as well as approaches to dealing with epidemics.
Ethical issues of the patient-doctor relationship can be attributed to bioethics. When evaluating the codification of patient rights or bioethics, it is important to understand that they, in turn, may include some human rights principles and their elements, but not necessarily include the full range of rights in terms of human rights.