"Health for all” and the challenges for pharmaceutical policies: A critical interpretive synthesis over 40 years

More than 40 years after the Alma-Ata Declaration on Primary Health Care, it is time to take stock. A look back at the evolution of pharmaceutical policies reveals the extent to which international health has transformed in the last four decades. The imperative of equitable access to healthcare, reaffirmed in Astana in 2018, has still not been achieved in many countries across the globe, whereas recent Ebola and COVID epidemics have opened up new political spaces for pharmaceutical development. In response to a gap in the literature with regard to the politics behind global pharmaceutical policymaking, we offer a critical interpretive synthesis of the literature on pharmaceutical policies, in English and French, from 1978 to 2018 inclusively. Our search strategy and inclusion criteria enabled us to select and review 134 papers and books on pharmaceutical policies. Building upon the seminal works of K.S. Rajan, we review the literature under the following assumption: pharmaceutical policies reflect or enact different conceptions of knowledge, political spaces, and value. We then critically discuss our findings in light of the contemporary debates, particularly in the wake of recurring epidemics. We thereby challenge the mainstream perspective according to which pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical policies must be viewed as value-free, apolitical instruments. © 2022 The Authors

Pandemics in the age of the Anthropocene: is 'planetary health' the answer? (Special Issue: Politics and pandemics.)

Some observers have described the coronavirus pandemic as an 'Anthropocene disease', thereby highlighting its connection with this new ecological era that is characterised by the considerable pressure human activities are exerting on ecosystems and the consequences on public health, society and the environment. This article focuses on the recent emergence of the 'Planetary Health' paradigm. Launched by the Rockefeller Foundation and the medical journal The Lancet, Planetary Health is one of the most ambitious attempts in recent years to systematize global health in the Anthropocene. While recognising the interest and necessity of reflecting on human health and the health of the planet, this article aims to show, however, that the Planetary Health paradigm is problematic and aporetic for two reasons. First, because it is based on a scientistic and depoliticised conception of the Anthropocene, which obscures capitalism's responsibility for the contemporary global and, especially, ecological crisis. Second, because this conception leads to a promotion of solutions that are essentially based on the financialization and technoscientific management of the living world - precisely the underlying cause of the degradation of ecosystems and living conditions that created the Anthropocene in the first place. A different kind of 'planetary health' remains possible and desirable.