ABSTRACT
The threat of an H5N1 influenza pandemic from 2005 to 2007 and the spread of the H1N1 pandemic in 2009 have contributed to the construction of a new field of debate concerning intellectual property and access to treatment. Discussions about influenza epidemics are now part of a new biopolicy that emerged in the late 1990s; this biopolicy emerged within the dual framework of health policies that sought to combat the AIDS epidemic (Moatti et al, 2003; Cassier and Correa, 2009) and of conflicts over the appropriation of biological resources (Bellivier and Noiville, 2009). This biopolicy, aimed at safeguarding patients and populations and at affirming their ‘right to heath’ (see the Brazilian constitution of 1988) and ‘right to life’ (Foucault, 1976), is promoted by an alliance of certain activist states, such as Brazil, in the health field. The alliance also includes NGOs engaged in campaigns for access to treatment and generics laboratories such as the Far-Manguinhos Federal Laboratory in Brazil and the Cipla laboratory in India. The conflict over patents and breast cancer genes in North America and Europe between 1995 and 2008 also illustrates this biopolicy concerning access to treatment (Cassier, 2002).
