Trade and Pharmaceuticals
HAI emphasises health aspects of trade policy
Two HAI representatives attended the World Trade Organization's (WTO) ministerial meeting held from 18-20 May in Geneva, immediately after the World Health Assembly.
This was very timely as it was differences over trade-related language and the TRIPs (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property) agreement of the WTO that derailed the Revised Drug Strategy resolution tabled at the Assembly. Attendance was also important because HAI has found that health aspects of trade issues, in particular on medicines and intellectual property rights, are woefully lacking in NGO discussions and advocacy on international trade, which is dominated by environment and labour groups. Although the WTO went to great efforts to minimise interactions between WTO delegations and the NGO community, HAI found that much needed to be done as well to introduce HAI and our perspectives and expertise on trade issues to the NGO community participating in the parallel NGO meetings.
Beryl Leach, HAI-Europe's Policy and Campaigns Officer and James Love, HAI contact and director of the Consumer Project on Technology participated in as many of the NGO discussion sessions as possible to increase awareness about the impact of trade agreements on public health policies and access to medicines, especially in developing countries.
HAI colleague B.K. Keayla, a leading Indian authority on TRIPs and pharmaceutical issues, teamed up with the HAI representatives in explaining patents, drugs pricing and TRIPs to audiences more used to hearing about TRIPs impacts on biotechnology, environment, biodiversity and labour conditions. NGO participants welcomed HAI's perspectives and expertise and strongly encouraged HAI's continued participation in the informal, international coalition of NGO discussions and advocacy on trade.
At the WTO ministerial, HAI continued its involvement in an international consultative process on transparency and WTO-NGO relations, coordinated by the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development. The proposal to approach the WTO to support a consultative group of international NGOs was set aside in the face of intense disagreements among NGOs about the value of organising and limiting NGO inputs to the WTO through such a mechanism. Agreement was reached to produce the Civil Society Declaration on Openness, Transparency and Access to Documents in the WTO which HAI has since endorsed along with 96 other NGOs. This statement was sent to the WTO in June and transparency and relations with civil society were taken up by the WTO General Council in July.
Preceding the WTO ministerial, HAI participated in an all-day international strategy meeting of NGOs working to defeat the Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAI). HAI joined this NGO network in February and has signed the NGO declaration on the MAI, which has now been endorsed by almost 600 NGOs. HAI was the only NGO present representing public health concerns. Participants welcomed HAI's report on an intellectual property and health care workshop held in May in Washington. They also welcomed the news that HAI,
following up on that Washington meeting, is organising an analysis of the MAI from health care and medicines perspectives and will be working on developing campaigning tools for HAI's constituency. Work on forming the HAI MAI working group is scheduled to begin in August.
To find out more about the MAI and the international NGO campaign to defeat it, visit the Public Citizen Global Trade Watch pages on the MAI: http://www.citizen.arg/pctrade/MAI/maihome.html
Workshop on TRIPs and health care
National policies regarding public health are increasingly regulated by international trade negotiators. On May 7 and 8, 1998, some 80 public health experts, and government and industry officials met in Washington, D.C. to discuss emerging issues concerning intellectual property, health care and international trade agreements. The meeting was sponsored by seven
consumer and public health groups, including Health Action International, the Consumer Project on Technology, Consumers International's Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, the Center for Study of Responsive Law, and the Harvard University Department of Social Medicine's Program in Infectious Disease and Social Change.
The two-day meeting focused on a wide range of disputes involving how public health policies are increasingly being challenged under a wide range of expanding assertions of intellectual property rights. These ranged from trademark disputes involving public health regulation of
the marketing of smoking, infant formula and generic drugs, to patent policies and new intellectual property regimes for databases and biotechnology research. A report of the conference will be published later this year.
On May 12, 1998, four days after the workshop, several participants sent a letter to the U.S. Department of State in support of the World Health Assembly's controversial "Revised Drug Strategy." This letter outlined several areas where trade disputes should be resolved in favour of public health considerations. This letter can be found on Internet at: http://www.cptech.org/pharm/jm-may12.html
The workshop also focused on issues such as the cost of developing new drugs. At the workshop Dr. Joseph DiMasi and James Love explained recent studies of drug development costs, including such topics as how industry profits are reported as "costs," and discussed evidence from the U.S. orphan drug tax credit programme which suggests industry outlays on testing of Orphan Drugs is far lower than is commonly thought.
Workshop participants also discussed the need to develop a programme on "essential medical research," as a pro-active alternative for trade negotiations. It is possible that there will be a second conference on these topics to be held the week before the next GATT Ministerial meetings next year in the U.S.
For more information about the meeting or to order a copy of the conference report, contact:
James Love, Consumer Project on Technology, P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036, U.S., tel: (+1-202) 387 8030, fax: (+1-202) 234-5176, e-mail love@cptech.org or website: http://www.cptech.org
World Bank health sector strategy gets once over from Dutch experts
Three World Bank staff ventured from the rarified environment of the Bank's Washington headquarters to discuss first-hand in Amsterdam what Dutch health and development experts think about the World Bank Sector Strategy Paper, "Health, Nutrition and Population." At an all-day meeting on 17 April organised by Wemos, 70 representatives from Dutch government, NGOs, and the health industry exchanged information and views about the World Bank's growing role in the health sector in developing countries and about the negative impacts of World Bank economic reform policies and structural programmes on citizens' health.
The meeting also gave Dutch participants a chance to gain insights into how the Bank works and possible ways to influence its work and policies.
Alexander Preker, principal economist in the Bank's Human Development Network and co-author of the sector paper, welcomed the opportunity to have a dialogue. He explained that "the Bank's research had concluded the need for a new direction in its approach to developments in health." The three major challenges the Bank identified were the chronic disease epidemic driven by tobacco use, infectious diseases such as drug-resistant malaria and the uneven burden of disease, which falls most heavily on the poorest who suffer the most from communicable diseases. Preker also admitted that market failures are a problem in health sector reform and health care delivery. His colleague, April Harding, noted that The Netherlands health care system was important for the Bank to understand as a possible model for its clients. One of the meeting participants responded that it had taken The Netherlands 100 years to develop its system.
Speakers also discussed finance, equity and policies outside the health sector, which were then further explored during workshop sessions in the afternoon.
Seminar participants recommended more open, public discussions between NGOs and the Bank. One called for NGOs to coordinate their efforts as a way to play a bigger role at the Bank. Another spoke of "the search for a structure in which NGOs and the Bank can exchange views." Mr. Preker suggested that Wemos, "perhaps together with NGOs working in Africa, should visit the Bank to meet their staff and build 'concrete forms of collaboration.'" Wemos is following up on this suggestion, mainly through contact with members of the International People's Health Council, some of whom are members of the HAI network, and is cooperating closely with the NGOs MEDACT (UK) and Physicians for
Social Responsibility (Finland) as part of the group Health Counts, a European consortium calling for the adjustment of economic policies to respect equity and the right to achieve the highest attainable health standard. HAI-Europe, through its HAI Africa networking programme, will also be playing an active role in following up on recommendations to strengthen NGOs inputs into Bank health sector work.
A copy of the meeting report can be ordered for NLG 10 (excluding postage). Contact: Wemos, P.O. Box 1693, 1000 BR Amsterdam, The Netherlands, tel: (+31-20) 468 8388, fax: (+3-20) 468 6008, or e-mail: wemos@wemos.nl
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