Thomas Pogge on Poverty and Global Justice

04/17/2009 at 9:00 a.m.

Pharmaceutical companies want to make money. Poor people can't afford expensive drugs. Can they ever make it work? Philosopher Thomas Pogge says they can. He leads a non–profit that envisions paying pharmaceutical companies while still getting affordable medicine to the poor. Will it work? Will it be a model for the future? Thomas Pogge is our guest on Weekday.

Plus, weekend weather forecast with Cliff Mass.

Related Event

Thomas Pogge will speak tonight at 7:00 p.m. (April 17) at Kane Hall. He is giving the keynote address for the University of Washington's Conference on Global Justice in the 21st Century. His talk is titled, "The Health Impact Fund: Boosting Innovation Without Obstructing Free Access."

Guest(s)

Thomas Pogge is the Leitner professor of philosophy and international affairs at Yale University. He's also the research director at the Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature at the University at Oslo. He writes about political philosophy, and the philosopher John Rawls supervised his dissertation at Harvard University. He leads Incentives for Global Health. It would pool monies from foreign governments to pay for pharmaceutical companies to register medicines and get paid proportionally to their impact on global health. He is the author of "World Poverty and Human Rights," which looks at global justice. He is also the lead author with economist Aidan Hollis of "The Health Impact Fund: Making New Medicines Accessible for All."

Cliff Mass is a University of Washington Atmospheric Scientist.