Each month for the 2024-25 academic year a piece of artwork or a poem on the topic of access to medicines has been displayed in the West Virginia University Health Sciences Library alongside a comment. For May, "Wolves in Sheep's Clothing IV" was accompanied by a response by Lemley Mullett, Digital Collections Assistant, West Virginia and Regional History Center. 

​A current Wolf in Sheep's Clothing is the ORPHAN Cures Act (H.R. 946). It presents itself as protecting research innovation. Actually, it is a crafty way for pharmaceutical companies to avoid price negotiations. Learn more from this Patients for Affordable Drugs update and fact sheet.

There are more Abraham Lincoln images in Gettysburg than you can shake a stick at. This statue on Baltimore Street by the Adams County Public Library rises above the text of the Gettysburg Address. While I’m not so keen on the overly oratorial pose sculptor Stanley J. Watts placed him in with the outstretched arm, there is something about the rest of his figure that feels right to me. The location feels right, too. The library is a place of welcome for all, a place of information, questions and stories. At a local People’s Town Hall event on May 3, both PA Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta and U.S. Rep. Madeleine Dean mentioned the Gettysburg Address in their remarks. They are each enamored by the writing and the evergreen truth of it.

Zoom in to the corner of the sheet Lincoln holds. The sticker is for Tradeoffs. 

Tradeoffs covers health policy news in a way that is accessible and sharp. I cannot put words into Lincoln’s mouth, but I think he would have liked this nonprofit organization and its podcast episodes. Lincoln had the maturity to let his views evolve. He was a policy wonk. Lincoln paid attention to the lived reality of others. He personally suffered serious injuries and infectious disease (including two rounds of malaria). Public health was no abstraction. He labored to communicate so that the result was effortless. I removed the sticker with the Tradeoffs logo. The moment was one of solidarity. This drive for the wellbeing of an entire population does not change through time.

The April piece featured in the West Virginia University Health Sciences Library exhibit Prescriptions for Change: Value Voting in Healthcare is "Skyrocket is a Verb" with a response from Terra Rogerson. Visit the exhibit case in Circulation on the second floor. April 7-13 was National Public Health Week. 

The March piece for the West Virginia University Health Sciences Library exhibit Prescriptions for Change: Value Voting in Healthcare is "Formulary Paperchain."

"We live in the upside-down" Jon Stewart exclaimed in the February 24, 2025 Episode from Season 30 of The Daily Show. A smashed coffee mug punctuated his exasperation at government subsidies for the pharmaceutical industry which, in turn, charges Americans as much as it pleases. We are so used to it, he reminds us, that we've become numb.  

We can do better. 

In February, "Patent Thickets Begin" was on display in the West Virginia University Health Sciences Library in Morgantown. The exhibit Prescriptions for Change: Value Voting in Healthcare rotates one work per month along with a response from a member of the community during the 2024-25 academic year. Here's an abstract for a New England Journal of Medicine article by WVU College of Law Professor S. Sean Tu. Co-authored with Bernard Chao, University of Denver Sturm College of Law; Ryan Whalen, University of Hong Kong; and Aaron S. Kesselheim, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, it includes a link to the full article, "Clearing Dense Drug-Patent Thickets."  

​If you don’t look carefully 
it’s like any other chandelier 
shimmering prim 
from the finial.                          
If you do,
you’ll see medic-alert charms                        
Hygeia bowls and dollar signs cut 
from Bohemian glass.                      

This barkeep commissioned it
to illuminate
an otherwise sparse space.

If you listen carefully 
the barkeep can explain 
how pharmacy benefit managers
and drug companies 
and their lobbyists work.
Then, 
he’ll hear what you have to say. 
He’ll measure and pour 
and listen. 

He’ll listen fully to you 
as all good barkeeps do.


​

"The Barkeep's Chandelier" was published by the journal North of Oxford in February, 2025.

I'm smitten by the effective logo for Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAE). I'm even more impressed by this global movement. The irony that drug development takes place on university campuses is not missed by these students. The UAE mission is "to promote access to medicines and medical innovations, change norms and practices in academic patenting and licensing, and empower students to advocate for a biomedical R&D system that works for everyone. Guided by principles of non-partisanship, democracy, transparency, solidarity and respect, we are a non-profit organization driven by the passion and commitment of our members."

Thank you! Keep up the good work. 

​Learn more about Universities Allied for Essential Medicines here, or visit the UAEM Blog here.

Looking back on 2024 I am grateful for the spring morning spent at the Frostburg Center For Literary Arts in Northwestern Maryland. The Center's Director, Jen Browne, runs a range of marvelous and varied literary programs on the FSU campus and in town. As part of the "Coffee with a Writer" series, we had a conversation around poetry and access to medicines on April 6. I thank Jen and Nina and every person present for their wisdom, attention and hospitality.