Description
Book SynopsisIndia and the Patent Wars contributes to an international debate over the costs of medicine and restrictions on access under stringent patent laws showing how activists and drug companies in low-income countries seize agency and exert influence over these processes. Murphy Halliburton contributes to analyses of globalization within the fields of anthropology, sociology, law, and public health by drawing on interviews and ethnographic work with pharmaceutical producers in India and the United States.
India has been at the center of emerging controversies around patent rights related to pharmaceutical production and local medical knowledge. Halliburton shows that Big Pharma is not all-powerful, and that local activists and practitioners of ayurveda, India's largest indigenous medical system, have been able to undermine the aspirations of multinational companies and the WTO. Halliburton traces how key drug prices have gone down, not up, in low-income countries under the ne
Trade Review
Halliburton ably describes the arcana of patent law while at the same time keeping his sights on the daunting, critical stakes of the issue: the continued accessibility of therapeutic know ledge for global public health. For this achievement, India and the Patent Wars is a crucial read for anyone interested in the global politics of health.
* Medical Anthropology Quarterly *
