Neglected tropical diseases

I attended the debate "Science for a better world - vision or illusion?" tonight, hosted by Café Nord-Sør and Universities Allied for Essential Medicines.The debate was centered around neglected tropical diseases that according to WHO affects up to 1 billion humans, without much research being done to discover vaccines or cures.

One of the speakers was Karita Bekkemellem, a former politician who is now the director of the Association of the Pharmaceutical Industry in Norway. She talked about how cooperation between industry, government and scientists is going to be essential if we are to produce cheap and effective medicines in the future. Another speaker was Lars Slørdal, professor in pharmacology at NTNU, who talked about how the problem is "not neglected diseases, but neglected humans" meaning that poverty and poor health are strongly correlated. He also took the opportunity to point put that the pharmaceutical industry is heavily influenced by the urge to make (great) profit and how this is not for the benefit of the society or the patients.

This lead to a so-called "heated discussion" between Slørdal and Bekkemellem, which was really entertaining for us in the audience. Bekkemellem was very defensive in her opening talk, so it seemed to me like she expected exactly the kind of criticism she got. I don't think the discussion was to the point though, as it's obvious, as Slørdal pointed out, that the global pharmaceutical industry do not necessarily invest research and money where it's most urgently needed (in antibiotic resistance, for instance). However Bekkemellem responded by talking about the Norwegian industry with it's 4000 employees, and how they're all "nice people". That's not really a good discussion in my view. Slørdal is right that the pharmaceutical industry has some moral issues - but Bekkemellem is right that pointing fingers isn't going to take us anywhere.

The two other speakers were Kårstein Måseide, senior adviser in the Research Council of Norway and Stig Slørdahl, from the Faculty of Medicine at NTNU. They talked about ongoing projects on research on neglected diseases and specific examples of aid - like a small, hand-held ultrasound device for medical sonography.

When the debate was over we managed to talk to some of the speakers about a cooperation with BUG - we might even get some of them to talk on the BUG seminar about antibiotic resistance, or other future events!