Today is Human Rights Day, a day commemorating the United Nations’ 1948 adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Three years after World War II ended, in the wake of genocide, unprecedented military, deadly armed conflict, and mass deprivation on a global scale, the UN declared that all people in the world have rights that defend the dignity of humankind. Freedom of religion, speech, the right to assemble and own property, protection from discrimination or persecution are all central to human rights. Everyone has these rights “without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”
These rights are applicable to Americans who can’t afford prescription drugs domestically because the prices are too high. Human rights include access to safe and affordable medicines, such as through importation of a more affordable drug ordered over the Internet.
Left to Right: Ron Andruff, Aria Ilyad Ahmad, Oki (Okiomiteni) Joy Olufuye, Gabriel Levitt.
I’m writing to you from Berlin, Germany on Thanksgiving and I’m missing my family. But it was important to be here. I came to attend and participate at the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF). At the IGF, people from all over the world delve into an assortment of internet issues that impact the lives of people everywhere. Very broadly, the topics covered related to free speech, privacy, competition, security, child safety, nationalism, protecting democratic elections, and the reason I was here: discussing and promoting access to safe and affordable medicine on the Internet. Attendees and participants are affiliated with international governmental organizations, national governments, non-profit organizations, activists, businesses, journalists, and a wide array of policy professionals focused on internet governance.
What is internet governance? I like this definition from Georgia Tech School of Public Policy:
“Internet governance refers to the rules, policies, standards and practices that coordinate and shape global cyberspace.”
From left to right: Aria Iliad Ahmad, me, Dr. Jillian Clare Kohler, Tim Smith, Ron Andruff, Dr. Shivam Patel, Tracy Cooley, and Robert Guerra.
Last year I organized a panel at a conference called RightsCon to bring together Internet freedom and medicines rights activists to talk about buying medication online. And last week, I participated on a panel at RightsCon in Toronto that continued and strengthened those initial efforts. It was an honor to be on that panel, especially to hold discussions with academic experts in pharmaceutical safety and access with important roles working with the World Health Organization (WHO).
For those of you who are new to this blog, the work at RightsCon is directly relevant to PharmacyChecker’s mission to inform patients about safe and lower-cost medication options available on the Internet. Essentially, large pharmaceutical companies are lobbying governments and Internet companies to take actions that will prevent you from getting less expensive medications. This is also an issue about free speech and Internet freedom that should increasingly attract even more digital rights activists. Big Pharma is pressuring governments to pressure Internet gatekeepers to take down content. This is the Stop Online Piracy Act by a thousand cuts. We are trying to push back against that.
RightsCon is an annual conference focusing on the intersection of human rights and digital rights (issues related to the Internet). Access to medication has become an important issue at the United Nations, including by the Human Rights Council, which passed a resolution in 2016 declaring access to essential medicines a human right. Also, the UN convened a panel in 2016 dedicated to this issue, called the UN High Level Panel on Access to Medicines. Thus, the title of this year’s panel was Making Safe Online Access to Affordable Medication Real: Address the UN Human Rights resolution for access to essential medicines. (more…)
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