E-DRUG: Access to medicines support from civil society in Thailand
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Thai civil society supports the health ministers of
Thailand and Brazil and calls on pharmaceutical
companies and lobbyists to stop abusing their power
The campaign in Thailand for affordable access to
life-saving drugs dates back more than a decade. Civil
society groups, including consumer and health
organisations, health professionals and people living
with HIV-AIDS, have worked together with officials of
the ministry of public health to achieve affordable,
accessible and quality health care for every Thai
citizen. We have worked with many different
governments, but always with the clear objective of
promoting health for all Thai people.
We are concerned that pharmaceutical companies,
lobbyists and interest groups are using misleading,
false and emotive arguments and advertising to
discredit the recent decision of the Thai government
to issue compulsory licences on the life-saving drugs.
These attempts to attack the legitimacy of the Thai
government's decisions are insulting and mischeivous.
The present Thai government -- which was indeed
appointed by the military following the coup of 19
September 2006 -- has not broken any laws: rather, the
Minister for Public Health and officials from the
Department of Health have acted according to the
flexibilities laid out in Article 31(b) of the WTO
intellectual property (TRIPS) agreement. These
flexibilities are available to all WTO members and
have been used by many countries in the past,
including the United States. (1)
It seems, however, that when faced with the prospect
of losing profits, the pharmaceutical companies,
backed by the US Chamber of Commerce and lobby groups
such as USA for Innovation, will stoop to any argument
to discredit the legitimate actions of the present
government. For example, in an advertisment published
in the Wall Street Journal on 9 May, 2007, the lobby
organisation USA for Innovation accused the Thai
government of "stealing" American assets to fund
increased militarisation. One week earlier,
advertising in the same newspaper, the lobbyists drew
a bizarre parallel between the current Thai
government's compulsory licencing decision and the
Burmese junta. (2)
We know that the pharmaceutical corporations have
unlimited financial resources to mount these
aggressive campaigns of dis-information. As public
health advocates, we believe that health policy should
not be subjected to the vicissitudes of politics, nor
should it be driven by the interests of transnational
pharmaceutical companies. Their current campaign of
disinformation shows the limits of "corporate social
responsibility."
We support fully the actions of the Thai and Brazilian
health ministers who exercised their right to issue
compulsory licences in the interests of public health,
thus taking us one step closer to realising the goal
of health for all.
(1)
http://www.cptech.org/ip/health/cl/recent-examples.htm
(2) http://www.usaforinnovation.org/home/index.cfm
Signed by:
Thai Network of People Living With HIV/AIDS (TNP+)
Thai NGO Coalition on AIDS
AIDS Access Foundation
Drug Study Group
Rural Pharmacist Foundation
Confederation of Consumer Organization
Foundation for Consumers
Biodiversity and Community Rights Action Thailand
Alternative Agriculture Network
FTA Watch
Corporate Watch, Thailand
Focus on the Global South (Thailand)
The Strategic Policy on Natural Resources Base
Project, National Human Right Commission
The Rural Reconstruction Alumni and Friends
Association
Medecins Sans Frontiers-Belgium (Thailand)
Kannikar KIJTIWATCHAKUL (Kar)
Mobile 66-85-0708954
kakablue@yahoo.com