The 10 Worst Corporations of 2008

By Robert Weissman, Multinational Monitor. Posted November 24, 2008.

Roche's Rupp says that "Currently, MSF is the only organization requesting purchase of Valcyte [Roche's brand name for valganciclovir] for such use in these countries. To date, MSF are the only AIDS treatment provider treating CMV for their patients. They told us themselves this is because no-one else has the high level of skilled medical staff they have."

Dr. David Wilson, former MSF medical coordinator in Thailand, says he remembers the first person that MSF treated with life-saving antiretrovirals. "I remember everyone was feeling really great that we were going to start treating people with antiretrovirals, with the hope of bringing people back to normal life." The first person MSF treated, Wilson says, lived but became blind from CMV. "She became strong and she lived for a long time, but the antiretroviral treatment doesn't treat the CMV."

"I've been working in MSF projects and treating people with AIDS with antiretrovirals for seven years now," he says, "and along with many colleagues we've been frustrated because we don't have treatment for this particular disease. We now think we have a strategy to diagnose it effectively and what we really need is the medicine to treat the patients."

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Multinational Monitor editor Robert Weissman is the director of Essential Action.

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