ABSTRACT
When antiretrovirals (ARVs) first came on the market in the 1990s, they were exceedingly expensive; the cost of treatment was upwards of US $10,000 per year.1 These drugs were thus only accessible to those with high incomes or exceptionally good health insurance, and gay activist groups – notably the militant organisation ACT-UP – targeted pharmaceutical companies, insurance providers, and governments for changes in their home governments, rather than at the global level (d’Adesky 2004; Kramer 2003; Johnson and Murray 1988; Smith and Siplon 2006).
