Got an email from a mayt yesterday – quote:

A good friend of mine is involved in an amazing project that aims to help make essential, life-saving medicines available to the third-world at reasonable prices. They’re achieving this by putting pressure on universities to license medical research in a way that ensures large pharmaceutical companies can’t have a global monopoly on a medicine, and that generics can be manufactured cheaply.

They’ve already successfully lobbied to have Yale license important AIDS drugs in this way. Their work could save many, many lives around the world.

Right now, they’re collecting signatures for the Philadelphia Consensus, a policy document on medical research and its licensing that universities can adopt. I encourage you to add your signature, and pass this on to anyone you think might be interested, particularly in the research and medical communities.

You can find out more and sign the consensus here:

http://consensus.essentialmedicine.org/

I don’t normally send this sort of thing around, but I think this is a really amazing project, and has a better chance of making a real difference to long-term third-world health than anything else I’ve seen.

Indeed. Check out the site, and if you agree, give your eSignature.