Morals and Medicines

The second case study, explored here in chapter 6, addresses the commitment of the New Labour government to increase the availability of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs needed to combat HIV and AIDS in the developing world. This chapter extends the analysis that appears in chapter 3 concerning New Labour’s claim to be the ‘party of business’ and its special relationship with the UK pharmaceutical industry. In doing so, it reveals a clear tension between the priority that New Labour afforded to these drug companies, and the commitment that Brown and other government officials made concerning the delivery of ARV medicines. Despite the urgent need to roll-out these drugs to stem the rising tide of AIDS-related deaths in the global South, New Labour’s policies – again designed principally by Brown – appeared to prioritise the preferences of these firms and their shareholders. Although Brown was amongst a number of government officials concerned at the prohibitively high price of these drugs, this chapter finds that he was also instrumental in introducing a number of measures that incentivised rather than forced the industry into meeting its wider obligations towards addressing HIV and AIDS, and the other so-called ‘diseases of poverty’ in the global South.