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Children Can’t Wait! Dying for Drugs in Developing Countries Seven years ago, Parliament unanimously passed a bill creating Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR). The law was supposed to help get lower-cost, generic medicines to people in developing countries. Instead, bureaucracy has weighed it down: so far, only one order of one AIDS drug has been sent to a single country. Both developing countries and generic drug manufacturers have complained that the current regime is too cumbersome and difficult to use — it is highly unlikely that CAMR will be used again unless it is reformed. In the last Parliament, a resounding majority of the House of Commons passed Bill C-393 on March 9, 2011, which would have fixed CAMR so that drugs could be sent to developing countries and lives saved. This bill enjoyed widespread support from humanitarian organizations, health professionals, and religious and community leaders. MPs from all parties supported the bill. But then it was deliberately and fatally stalled in the Senate: Bill C-393 died on the Order Paper when Parliament was dissolved and the 2011 federal election was called. Read the joint statement from a wide range of Canadian organizations. The desperate need to reform CAMR and get medicines to those suffering and dying in developing countries still exists. We will have to wait until our new Parliament convenes to determine whether or not there will be an opportunity to reintroduce similar legislation. This is an important humanitarian issue that transcends partisan politics, and it is our hope that we will have another chance to fix CAMR. Key Documents
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Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network
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