E-DRUG Request for information
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To e-drug subscribers,
My name is Aoife Collins, I am a postgraduate student in Dublin,
Ireland. I wrote to your conference last year looking for information on
the use of the drug Lomotil, for a final year dissertation that I was doing.
Well, I am now doing my masters thesis on the pharmaceutical industry
also, and I found e-drug so helpful last year, I thought I'd write again and
ask for more valuable information.
Having looked at the problems re drug regulation and inappropriate marketing
already, this year I am focussing on the effectiveness of different kinds of
grassroots/popular action being taken against the pharmaceutical industry at
present. These include all those groups which aim at regulating its
practices, rationalising drug use, promoting public health concerns and/or
finding alternatives to the pharmaceutical industry altogether.
More specifically, I am looking at action being taken at local,
national and international levels- such as the work on a national drug
policy in Bangladesh in the last couple of decades, and the work of Health
Action International and other NGOs/advocacy groups working on a global
level.
I would therefore appreciate it if any e-druggers could assist me by
telling me their views on the effectiveness of different kinds of
counterhegemonic activities that have been undertaken in recent years- Has
anything changed in the last couple of decades, is the public health of the
poor of more concern to those in power nowadays, or does the pharmaceutical
industry still enjoy immunity from any challenges due to its powerful
position as part of the global free market system??
I would love to hear from anyone involved in this work, anyone with
ideas on a locally based, grassroots project worth discussing, and anyone
involved in or under the umbrella of HAI, who could tell me more about the
success(or lack of) of its campaigns over the years.
Thanks in advance,
Yours sincerely,
Ms. Aoife Collins,
Dublin City University,
Ireland.
email: aoife_collins@hotmail.com