Twenty one years of HIV/AIDS medicines in the newspaper: patents, protest, and philanthropy

Abstract

In 1996, highly active antiretrovirals (ARVs) were released to the public, radically altering the health prospects of people living with HIV and AIDS. In the two decades since, ARVs have become the subject of intense political debate and social justice mobilization. In particular, ARV intellectual property patent protections have become a high-profile trade and diplomacy issue, while major philanthropic organizations have entered the fray to support large-scale treatment programs. This article maps 21 years of HIV/AIDS medicines coverage in mainstream newspapers to illustrate these developments and contestations. It demonstrates two main processes: first, where civil society mobilization successfully promoted ARVs onto the media and policy agenda, and second, where issue fragmentation and a changing political and media context saw ARVs dramatically exit the news coverage, despite the continuing catastrophic scale of the global HIV/AIDS medicines crisis.