ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book seeks to present material of potential value to consumer advocates. In the case of an individual who has authority in relation to the provision of medicines, no group of advisers can be so wise as to know the particulars of a setting or the imperatives of a history. The contributors to this book, more distant than ordinary advisers, will know less of local matters even if they have sought to know more of the general world of fact which bears on their special field. A specialist in rare diseases will want public funds spent on medicines to treat ‘his’ ailment — so will his patients — but the finance authorities in a country (or health or hospital system) with much illness and little money will give a different priority to medicines research, purchase and distribution.
