Dallas Buyers Club

I finally watched Dallas Buyers Club last week. I have had it for a few weeks but was waiting to be in the right mindset to watch what I thought would be a hard hitting film, but it actually was not that depressing.  * Spoiler alert – I will reveal aspects of the movie*.

The movie is based in part on the story of Ron Woodroff, portrayed by Matthew McConaughey, who was diagnosed with Aids in 1985 and given 30 days to live. With a determination to live, he smuggled drugs into the USA that were not approved by the US government agency that regulates drugs, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Woodroff sets up a buyers’ club in Texas and begins to distribute these to other people living with HIV.  Buyers’ clubs existed across the US to pool together members’ monthly membership fees to import drugs (e.g from Mexico, Japan) that were often not approved by the FDA. Members could then self medicate. Woodroff died in 1992, seven years after his diagnosis.

A few things caught my attention as I watched it. The stigma and discrimination portrayed in the film is the community perception that Woodroff must have been gay. It was 1985 and Aids was considered mainly a gay disease. There were not any stigma or misconceptions portrayed around touching someone with HIV. It was warming to see at the end of the movie Woodroff and the doctor drinking beer from the same bottle.

The FDA is painted as a bad guy!  In the film, FDA is made to look like its purposely advocating the use of AZT even though they know it is toxic. Was FDA colluding with pharmaceuticals companies and preventing the import of more effective drugs.  The movie illustrates how long it takes for drugs to get government approval even during a crisis or epidemic. In Malawi, we don’t have Buyers Club per say, but I have and I know plenty of others too have brought medicines into Malawi that are not approved by our Pharmacy, Medicine and Poisons and Board.