Sterckx Sigrid
Department of Philosophy & Moral Sciences, Ghent University, Blandijnberg 2, 9000 Gent Belgium.
Dev World Bioeth. 2004 May;4(1):58-75. doi: 10.1111/j.1471-8731.2004.00067.x.
More than a third of the world's population has no access to essential drugs. More than half of this group of people live in the poorest regions of Africa and Asia. Several factors determine the accessibility of drugs in developing countries. Hardly any medicines for tropical diseases are being developed, but even existing drugs are often not available to the patients who need them. One of the important determinants of access to drugs is the working of the patent system. This paper first maps out some facts about the global patent regime that has emerged as a consequence of the conclusion of the WTO-TRIPs Agreement in 1994. Attempts to construct a moral justification of the patent system have been based on three grounds: natural rights, distributive justice, and utilitarian arguments. This paper examines to what extent and on which grounds drug patents can be justified. The final section looks at the so-called 'Doha Declaration on the TRIPs Agreement and Public Health', which was adopted by the WTO Ministerial Conference two years ago, recognising the primacy of public health over the interests of patent proprietors.
全球超过三分之一的人口无法获得基本药物。这一群体中超过一半的人生活在非洲和亚洲最贫困的地区。有几个因素决定了发展中国家药品的可及性。几乎没有针对热带疾病的药物正在研发，而且即使是现有的药物，有需要的患者也常常无法获得。获取药物的一个重要决定因素是专利制度的运行。本文首先梳理一些有关全球专利制度的事实，该制度是1994年世贸组织《与贸易有关的知识产权协定》（TRIPs协定）达成后出现的。为专利制度构建道德正当理由的尝试基于三个理由：自然权利、分配正义和功利主义论点。本文考察药品专利在何种程度上以及基于何种理由是合理的。最后一部分审视两年前世贸组织部长级会议通过的所谓《关于TRIPs协定与公共卫生的多哈宣言》，该宣言承认公共卫生优先于专利所有者的利益。
