Hello,

I have been waiting to see this documentary ever since I read about it over 6 months ago. It was finally release here on the 23rd of February to my excitement. Unfortunately, viewing it turned out to be much more difficult than I anticipated. Several frustrating searches revealed that it was only showing at a hand full of cinemas in London and even at these cinemas it was only showing at those “difficult to make” times.

I actually do not know why I expected it to be, maybe because it was given great reviews at Sundance and by most major critics and I some how lost track that it is actually reporting one of the worlds largest humanitarian disgraces; the failure of western pharmaceutical companies to provide affordable drugs to patients in the developing world. So of course it would not be “main-streamed”.

This campaigning documentary basically indicts the pharmaceutical giants that could have saved millions from AIDS in the developing world. This is what the the Guardian said about it:

“As presented, the corporate defence sounds horribly racist: that poorer Africans’ inability to read packaging or tell the time leaves them ill-suited to following any medication program. For some time, director Dylan Mohan Gray is limited to restating the same depressing story, using input from doctors and campaigners to punctuate footage of families grieving around child-sized coffins. But hope emerges in the form of the Indian physicist Yusuf Hamied, whose company Cipla undertook in the noughties to produce cheap, generic drugs in defiance of the Pfizer patent lawyers. As the indignation rises, the outcome of this battle cannot entirely be guessed, although one closing credit appears to address Big Pharma directly: “Help prevent a sequel.”

Please, if it is showing anywhere near you, go and watch this documentary. Conspiracy theory aside, it is important that you know that HIV/AIDs should not be around now (we know all we need to know about it as scientists/researchers) and medically we know how to put a stop to it. Why is it still around and increasing, polio isn’t and neither is small pox!?!?!?!?

Click on the trailer below.

I am going to see it tomorrow at Ritzy, Brixton, London. I hope it gives us all food for thought and further understanding to the type of world we live. Maybe in the future, we can figure out a way to support those who do not follow the “rules” and get rid of medical patents. I hope.

E