Universities Allied for Essential Medicines:

Indiana University Chapter

 

UAEM at Indiana University

The Indiana University chapter of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) was founded in late 2006 by third year medical student Paul Park, who was introduced to the organization through a friend attending the University of Pennsylvania.  UAEM is a student advocacy group with chapters at over twenty-five major research universities in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. UAEM has been campaigning for universities to acknowledge their role in global public health, and to improve access to health goods in developing countries by changing their technology licensing policies.  Universities are dedicated to the creation and dissemination of knowledge in pursuit of the public interest. As global public health is a vital component of the public interest, we believe that universities have a responsibility to promote innovation and access to medicines and other health-related technologies

Indiana University’s dedication to international public health is already clearly demonstrated through the world-renowned IU-Kenya partnership and research program.[1] We as the IU chapter of UAEM see this as an opportunity for Indiana University to continue its tradition of reaching out to developing countries and truly making a difference. By developing technology-licensing provisions that oblige licensees to allow unfettered generic access to end-products in low- and middle-income countries, IU can be part of this international movement, supported by five Nobel laureates as well as Drs. Paul Farmer and Jim Kim, the founders of Partners in Health, to improve access to health goods in developing countries.

The Indiana University chapter of UAEM stands ready to support our university in this process. Since its inception, our chapter has gained support from over 85 students and several faculty who have signed the Philadelphia Consensus Statement, the document outlining the goals of UAEM.   As a chapter we have held lunch talks for medical students and collected the signatures of our classmates.  Two of our members have been working closely with undergraduate and medical students in Bloomington who are excited about forming a local UAEM chapter.  We are collaborating with law students in Indianapolis and have also made contact with a Bloomington law student interested in UAEM.  In September of 2007 three of our members attended the UAEM national conference at Harvard University and in January of this year a member of our UAEM chapter wrote an article for the medical student publication Iatrogenesis.