Letter from the Affordable Medicines Treatment Campaign to India’s National Human Rights Commission
Justice A S Anand  
The Chairperson  
National Human Rights Commission (NHRC)  
Sardar Patel Bhavan, Sansad Marg  
New Delhi 110001  
Sub: (Third Amendment to Patents Act 2004)

Dear Justice Anand:  
 
I am writing this letter on behalf of Affordable Medicines and Treatment Campaign (AMTC). The AMTC is a national campaign aimed at creating an environment that will ensure sustained accessibility and affordability of medicines and treatment for every individual in India, including access to affordable Anti-Retroviral Therapy for persons living with HIV/AIDS. It consists of civil society organisations, NGOs, patients groups, healthcare providers and concerned individuals. The campaign was initiated in 2001 with the following mission statement:  
 
The right to life and health is a fundamental right guaranteed to every person living in India and is non-negotiable. This campaign aims to demand and create an environment that will ensure sustained accessibility and affordability of medicines and treatment for every individual in India, including access to affordable Anti-Retroviral Therapy for persons living with HIV/AIDS. This campaign shall be democratic and participatory. It will seek the mobilization of communities and civil society to make state, national and international agencies and industry accountable for securing health for all.
  
AMTC attempts to encourage action on a wide spectrum of issues relating to the right to treatment. These include WTO negotiations relating to the TRIPS agreement (TRIPS), the impending amendment to Patents Act 1970, law and regulation of drug pricing, national and state level governmental policies relating to health including vertical disease programmes, health needs of the population, transparency and accountability in the pharmaceutical sector, treatment literacy and health care infrastructure etc.


~

Bis, lies and the Internet
The state of the bisexual press - and the queer media's alleged tunnel vision
By Liz Highleyman


There are hundreds of gay or GLBT publications, and dozens of lesbian ones. Yet the bisexual press has a visibility problem - like bisexuals themselves, some might say.
 
Since the demise of the only U.S. national print bisexual magazine, Anything That Moves (ATM), the bi press has taken the form of local newsletters, zines, and online publications.
 
ATM began publishing in 1991, riding the crest of a burgeoning bisexual movement that saw the creation of dozens of local groups and the formation of BiNet USA, a national network for bisexuals (itself now on a long-term hiatus). ATM was a 64-page magazine with a glossy cover, publishing seasonally at first, and with a more random schedule as it aged. The final two issues came out a year apart.

 
After 22 issues, ATM called it quits in the spring of 2001. According to former staffer Jack Random, "The primary reason for ATM's fold was volunteer burnout, aggravated by the perennial financial issues of any small volunteer organization."