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Patents: how the profit machine costs lives
Despite miraculous trial results showing new treatment could halt transmission, corporate greed and patent laws condemn millions to preventable infection and death, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
LINING THEIR POCKETS: Gilead Sciences HQ in Foster City, California; (insert) Descovy used for HIV prevention through pre-exposure prophylaxis [(L to R) Coolcaesar/CC - EEJCC/CC]

DECIDING a particular year when a scientific discovery or advance took place is often an arbitrary decision. Archimedes is said to have leapt from his bathtub and shouted “Eureka!” when he realised that the volume of any object, no matter how complicated, could be found by placing the object in water and measuring the volume of water it displaces.

But even that eureka moment is of dubious authenticity. It is rare for scientific research to advance in a glorious instant of revelation.

So when the journal Science named the HIV/AIDS drug lenacapavir as its “breakthrough of the year,” it shouldn’t be surprising that its story began far earlier.

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A person wheeling his bike on the promenade in Salthill, Galway. Storm Amy will bring damaging winds to the island of Ireland with every county under weather warnings on Friday. Wind speeds could reach up to 80mph (130km/h) along the most exposed coastal areas of the island, with fallen trees and power outages among the potential impacts. Picture date: Friday October 3, 2025
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While politicians condemned fascist bombing of Spanish civilians in 1937, they ignored identical RAF tactics across the colonies. Today’s aerial warfare continues this pattern of applying different moral standards based on geography and race, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT

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