Kiwi author says AIDs crisis sidelined by media

The AIDs crisis remains a global issue but doesn’t receive the media attention it deserves, according to a Kiwi author.

AUT communications lecturer Dr Thomas Owen has said although the AIDs crisis is “bigger than ebola”, media coverage on the issue has been declining since 1987.

Dr Owen made the comments at the launch of his new book, Pill, Patents and the Press: The rise and fall of the global HIV/AIDs medicines crisis in the news, last week.

“This is a very real crisis that is affecting millions of people’s lives around the world and communities, but it’s not getting the attention it deserves, whether its HIV, AIDs in general or patents.”

Dr Owen’s book investigates how media coverage affected an AIDs patent lawsuit in South Africa in 2001 between pharmaceutical companies and the South African government.

The case was won by the government, which led to cheaper access to generic AIDs medicines.

On his research about the global powers at play, Dr Owen said “the thing that really surprised me was that it wasn’t about what the rules were, […] it was about who has the power to interpret the rules and that’s where the real power lies”.

“A lot of the free trade agreements before us now, the TPPA or the EU India Free Trade Agreement, all of these increase intellectual property protections which makes it a lot harder for a country like India to make generic medicines.”

Co-Director of the Journalism, Media and Democracy Research Centre Wayne Hope said the book is very important.

“It’s not only academically necessary, it’s publicly necessary, so people know why sometimes their medicines are a higher price than what they would want.”

Health journalism could be at risk of biased reporting

Dr Owen also described some of the issues in global journalism on health issues such as AIDs as “sinister”.

One example he gave is that there could be a conflict of interest now in international health journalism in general.

He said due to a lack of resources, health journalism is relying more on philanthropic foundations to fund news production such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

This foundation is largely funded by Microsoft and pharmaceutical companies, which lobby for patent protectionism.

“You can’t escape the fact that it’s a conflict of interest,” Dr Owen said.

Dr Owen said he would like someone else to research this further, but he thinks it would be difficult.

“Identifying bias, connecting it to political economic structures with a vested interest is a difficult thing to do, if it exists at all. It’s a big question to ask. It questions journalistic objectivity.”