BIOETHICS AND THE RIGHT OF ACCESS TO MEDICINES

Debates in the field of bioethics, in general, turn around of specific subjects such as genetic manipulation, transplants of organs, among others. This article shows another dimension of bioethics, the one related to the questions of public health and, specially, to the access to medicines to the populations of the less rich countries. This means that bioethics is necessarily associated to the current politician and economic circumstances. Ethical questions that have came to light from the analysis of the role of the States and of the international organisms in order to guarantee the access to medicines has been changing, even so very slowly, certain purely marketing dogmas and establishing a more rational and human balance between the rights of the industrial property and the interests of the public health. That is the reason that " Doha's Declaration" means a substantial advance in the fight of the underdeveloped countries to offer accessible medicines to its populations.