Global Fund facility offering subsidized malaria drugs 'could do more harm than good'

Sep 9 2011

In this article in The American, a journal of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Roger Bate, the Legatum Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and Richard Tren, director of Africa Fighting Malaria, write that the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria "launched a $225 million facility that offers subsidized malaria drugs ...provid[ing] subsidies so that shops can sell relatively expensive drugs at low cost, thereby using the reach and power of markets to save lives," adding that the mechanism "is perverting the market for malaria drugs and could do more harm than good." The authors call on Congress to examine the subsidy system, writing, "The United States is not funding the subsidy, but the subsidy is harming programs the United States is supporting. Understanding and then stopping wasteful spending decisions would save money and lives" (9/8).