Chinekwu Obidoa hosted a screening for the film “Fire in the Blood,” directed by Dylan Mohan, as part of the African Film Series on Nov. 11. The documentary explores the impact of Western pharmaceutical companies blocking access to affordable antiretroviral drugs that treat HIV and AIDS in developing countries.
After they invented the antiretroviral drugs, companies patented them and made it illegal to make and sell generic versions. The drugs’ cost has stranded many individuals as they look for treatment. The move has led to 10 million people dying of HIV or AIDS, the documentary claimed.
“The only reason we are dying is because we are poor,” Zackie Achmat, an activist based in South Africa, said in the film.
After the film was screened, Tanisha Narula ‘27 said that the “millions of deaths during the AIDS crisis were preventable,” and that she believed access to the drugs was tampered with for “political and economic” reasons.
In the film, Achmat and other protestors decided to boycott the drugs until their cost was more affordable for the people who most needed them.
Legislation in India had not originally placed product patent restrictions on HIV and AIDS medication, which allowed people to create and share a less expensive generic drug. The annual cost of the treatment dropped from $15,000 per patient to around $200 as a result, and could be purchased by African nations, according to reporting from The Guardian. In 2005, India's parliament passed a law that outlawed generic patent drugs, per The Guardian, which eliminated the ability for any country to receive a more affordable option that had the same positive effects as the patented prescription.
The film shined light on a subject who withdrew from public life for three years because they were scared that their colleagues and neighbors would view them differently or mistreat them based on their diagnosis. The person, Gabrielle Streater '28 said, was subject to the "stigma and isolation" that is often talked of in Obidoa's HIV and AIDS in Africa course.
Tanisha Narula ‘27, a global health studies major, also drew parallels between the film and the course that coincided with it.
“The film didn’t just explain the AIDS epidemic,” Narula said. “It showed how global policies affect human rights in a way that felt powerful and important.”
