Access to Medicines Ireland – Live Web Conference – 2020

The AMI group are continuing with an online conference on April 7, dedicated to Defending the Public Interest in Vaccine and Medical Development with a specific focus on COVID-19. 

Ahead of the live conference on March 31, the group issued a letter to Irish Research Organisations urging them to build pro-public safeguards in the funding of research on Coronavirus which guarantee accessibility, availability and affordability for treatments which are developed in Ireland.

READ THE LETTER HERE

Access to Medicines Ireland – LIVE Web Conference
7th April 2020: Livestream Available Here
 
COVID-19 has shone a light on a fatal weakness in our health system, the profit-driven drugs model used to develop life-saving vaccines and medicines. Currently the pharmaceutical industry, and the monopolies that drive its profits, control which medicines will be developed, and who will get to access them.

The group are demanding that public health rather than financial gain drive the R&D agenda. Governments must use their power to direct and control medical development and to ensure that products are accessible to the public—who will have contributed substantially to early research.

The global health emergency caused by the new coronavirus outbreak should bring countries, international organizations, NGOs, investors and industry together to agree on a new social contract where industry acknowledges it cannot both have and eat the cake: If more public money is going to be spent directly on the development of new products and vaccines, the price of the products has to be closer to the marginal cost of production. Governments then need to keep their end of the bargain and invest in robust health systems to provide prevention, treatment, and care. Drug markets will not fix themselves.

10.00 am to 1.00 pm

Web Conference opening by Ms. Emily O’Reilly, EU Ombudsman

Date: April 7, 2020 
Time: 10 am – 1 pm
Join the online conference: at this Link: https://zoom.us/j/996912898
Panel discussion facilitated by Susan Mitchell, Sunday Business Post – Deputy Editor

• Ms. Emily O’Reilly, EU Ombudsman ;  Opening 
  Ellen ‘t Hoen, Lawyer and Independent Consultant in Medicines Policy and Law
  Dr Gaëlle Kirkorian Head of Policy, MSF Access Campaign
  Samuel J. McConkey  Associate Professor and Head of the Department of International Health and Tropical Medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland
  Dr. Andrew Hill – University of Liverpool
  Mr Darren O Rourke – TD and PhD Scholar
  Mr. Diarmaid McDonald, Just Treatment
  Professor Luke O’Neill – Trinity College Dublin
  Jacqui Browne, Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission
  Kay Curtin, Irish Patient Advocate, AMI

Conference Organisers

This conference is organised by AMI a membership group of Comhlámh with support from the following:  Comhlamh, Irish Global Health Network, Medicins Sans Frontieres, and the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation.

NOTICE TO REGISTERED ATTENDEES: In the interests of public safety, the Access to Medicines Ireland Conference has been postponed till further notice. In its place, a three-hour online conference will focus on access to medicine questions surrounding COVID-19.

FILL IN EVALUATION FORM HERE