WEB SITES

NGOs

Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics, APUA:
http://www.healthsci.tufts.edu/apua/apua.html

Cochrane Collaboration:
http://www.cochrane.org

Consumers International:
http://www.consumersinternational.org

Health Action International:
http://www.haiweb.org

Healthlink Worldwide:
http://www.healthlink.org.uk

Healthy Skepticism (formerly the Medical Lobby for Appropriate Marketing):
http://www.healthyskepticism.org/

International Clinical Epidemiology Network, INCLEN:
http://www.inclen.org

International Network for Rational Use of Drugs, INRUD (includes the journal INRUD News):
http://www.msh.org/inrud

Management Sciences for Health:
http://www.msh.org

The International Drug Price Indicator Guide is available on Management Sciences for Health Manager’s Electronic Resource Centre web site at:
http://erc.msh.org

Médecins Sans Frontières:
http://www.msf.org

MSF’s access to medicines campaign:
http://www.accessmed-msf.org

Public Citizen Health Research Group:
http://www.citizen.org/hrg

Wemos Foundation, Dutch NGO concerned with international health issues, including a campaign to improve drug donations:
http://www.wemos.nl

Media (professional and mass)

A sample of what is available

Australian Prescriber:
http://www.australianprescriber.com

British Medical Journal:
http://www.bmj.com/bmj/

International Society of Drug Bulletins:
http://prn.usm.my/isdb.html

Lancet:
http://www.thelancet.com

Lancet’s experimental electronic research archive in international health:
http://www.thelancet.com/newlancet/eprint

Pharma Kritik, Swiss drug bulletin:
http://www.infomed.org

Tools

Biomail is a new search tool which periodically does a user-customised Medline search and sends articles to the user’s e-mail address:
http://biomail.sourceforge.net/biomail/

SATELLIFE free information services to health professionals. More details at:
http://www.healthnet.org

National, regional and governmental

Australia. A database on quality use of medicines activities in Australia:
http://www.qum.health.gov.au

Dutch Medicines Evaluation Agency (includes all its evaluation reports on drugs newly registered in the Netherlands):
http://www.cbg-meb.nl

European Evaluation Agency:
http://www.eudra.org/emea.html

Food and Drug Administration, USA:
http://www.fda.gov

LANIC Latin American Network Information Center (includes Drug Bulletin):
http://lanic.utexas.edu/farmacos

Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network, SIGN (supports development of evidence-based clinical guidelines for the UK National Health Service):
http://www.show.scot.nhs.uk/sign/index.html

South Africa. Key documents on South Africa’s national drug policy and essential drugs programme:
http://www.healthlink.org.za under “Info. Resources”

Also on line press cuttings on health issues at:
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=125

United States Pharmacopeia:
www.usp.org

WHO

ICIUM. Presentations from the International Conference on Improving Rational Use of Medicines, in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in April 1997. Reviews interventions to promote rational use of drugs, developing policy guidelines and identifies areas for future research:
http://www.who.int/dap-icium

International Digest of Health Legislation database:
http://www.who.int/idhl

WHO. Information on WHO programmes, diseases, publications, press releases and much more. Links to WHO Regional Offices.
http://www.who.int

WHO Department of Essential Drugs and Medicines Policy:
http://www.who.int/medicines/

WHO’s Antimicrobial Resistance Information Bank (AR InfoBank) at:
http://oms2.b3e.jussieu.fr/arinfobank/

WHO Regional Office for the Americas:
http://www.paho.org/

WHO Regional Office for Europe Pharmaceuticals Programme:
http://www.who.dk/ch/pha

The Programme’s Special Project for the NIS:
http://www.dk/ch/pha/NIS

WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia:
http://w3.whosea.org/htp/fredm.htm

WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific HIV-AIDS Antiretroviral Newsletter:
http://www.who.org.ph/technical/programme/std.htm

WHO priced publications on pharmaceuticals:
http://www.who.int/dsa/cat98/phar8htm

Web sites on trade-related issues and access to medicines

The Consumer Project on Technology web site is an extensive source of information (articles and data) on regional trade agreements and TRIPS, patents and drugs, compulsory licensing, parallel imports, health registration data and generic competition:
http://www.cptech.org/ip/health

The South Centre is an intergovernmental body which works for the benefit of developing countries of the South. Its web site provides interesting bibliographical references and papers, some covering pharmaceuticals and trade issues.
http://www.southcentre.org/

The Third World Network is an independent non-profit international network of organizations and individuals involved in development issues. Its web site offers articles and position papers on a variety of subjects related to developing countries, including trade, health, biotechnology and biosafety.
http://www.twnside.org.sg/

The World Intellectual Property Organization provides information related to intellectual property and patents in general, and to the international intellectual property treaties it manages.
http://www.wipo.org/eng/main.htm

The World Trade Organization has a very comprehensive web site, including a page on the TRIPS Agreement.
http://www.wto.org

Drug access campaign web sites

Various activist organizations are involved in treatment access campaigns, including some internationally-coordinated work, for example:

Global Treatment Access Campaign:
www.globaltreatmentaccess.org

South Africa’s Treatment Action Campaign:
http://www.tac.co.za

Save the Children Fund:
http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/

Oxfam:
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/

VSO:
http://www.oneworld.org/vso/

ACT UP chapters in New York, Paris and Philadelphia:
http://www.actupny.org

See also MSF access campaign, address listed under NGOs

E-MAIL DISCUSSION GROUPS

AFRO-NETS African Networks for Health Research and Development

For exchange of information between networks active in health research for development in eastern and southern Africa. To subscribe contact: majordomo@usa.healthnet.org Leave the subject line blank and write “subscribe afro-nets” in the text space.

E-Drug

An easy way to obtain and discuss current information on essential drugs, national drug policies and standard treatment guidelines. It is also a good source of information on upcoming conferences and courses, new publications, recent articles, and broader political (e.g. trade, patents, pricing) aspects of drug access. To view: http://www.healthnet.org/programs/edrug.html To subscribe contact: majordomo@usa.healthnet.org Put “subscribe e-drug” in the text space.

For the French language E-Drug, write “subscribe e-med” and for the Spanish “subscribe e-farmacos”.

EVIMED

Provides a new electronic forum in Spanish for those wanting to discuss new ideas, research, education or practice of evidence-based health care.

To subscribe contact: RafaBravo@bitmailer.com

HIF-net at WHO

An e-mail discussion list for people who want to improve access to reliable information for health workers in developing and transitional countries.

To subscribe contact: INASP_Health@compuserve.com

INDICES: International Network for Drug Information Centres

An electronic forum for discussion of issues related to drug information.

To subscribe contact: majordomo@usa.healthnet.org

In text of message put: Subscribe indices

IP-health

Very comprehensive and super-rapid discussions of intellectual property and health care issues, including pharmaceutical policies, particularly in relation to access to medicines, pricing, global campaigns. A digest option is available.

To subscribe contact: ip-health@lists.essential.org and to set the digest option go to: http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/ip-health

No Free Lunch

Serves as a forum for the exchange of ideas and information on evidence based treatment and industry promotional activities. To subscribe contact: nofreelunchserve@pairlist.net

On the web at: http://www.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/nofreelunchserve

SAFCO (SIDA en Afrique du Centre et de l’Ouest)

Network set up to encourage discussion (in French) and the electronic exchange of information on issues related to HIV or AIDS in francophone Africa. To subscribe contact: safco@hivnet.ch