E-DRUG: G8 downgrades access to medicines issue
-----------------------------------------------
[after the WHO Assembly in Geneva, lobbyists are now crossing the lake for
the G8 meeting in Evian, 1-3 June. The access to medicines issue has been
downgraded by the French government host, probably under pressure from USA.
A new side-effect from the Iraq conflict? Crossposted with thanks from
IP-Health. Copied as fair use. WB]
POLITICS-G8: 'No Time for Pressing Issues Facing Global Economy'
Analysis by Julio Godoy
PARIS, May 28 (IPS) The summit of the Group of Eight, to take place
June 1-3 in the French Alpine city of Evian, will not fulfil its own
agenda, independent observers say.
[snip]
Similarly, on health issues, says the French daily Le Monde, "the
original G8 plan of action to improve the access of the world's poorest
countries to medicaments has been downgraded."
The newspaper says, the French government had prepared an ambitious
declaration for endorsement by the G8, drawing attention to "the global
hygienic crisis and the critical situation" arising from the lack of
low-cost medicine in Africa, Latin America and Asia.
The initial French position also referred to the Doha Declaration,
issued during the World Trade Organisation (WTO) summit in November 2001
in Qatar. It called for "an integrated framework to improve access to
medical treatment and medicine" in the poorest countries of the world.
This integrated framework would include the boosting of local
medicine production in the countries of the South, and the transfer of
technology from highly developed to developing lands.
"But the U.S. government rejected this original statement, leading to
a downgrading of the health issue in the G8 agenda," Le Monde claims.
Instead, Washington came out with its own proposal, which dismisses
the notion that "the price of medicaments may be the principal obstacle
to an improvement of health".
The U.S. proposal also underlines the "importance of a powerful
private sector's role" in health questions.
According to Le Monde, the French government accepted the U.S.
objections, "surely aiming to avoid new tensions (between Paris and
Washington) as those provoked by the war against Iraq, and which would
endanger the summit of Evian".
The new so-called 'Plan of Action for Health' to be discussed by G8
"pays tribute to the pharmaceutical industry, makes no reference to the
Doha Declaration, to the local production of medicine or to the transfer
of technology".
For Jean-Herv� Bradol, president of the French organisation Doctors
without Borders, the downgrading of the health issue on the agenda of
the G8 summit "is a very bad news".
"Three years ago, the G8 meeting at Okinawa fixed ambitious
objectives to reduce the spread of AIDS," Bradol told IPS. "Since then,
the number of AIDS victims has increased."
The accusations that private interests are misusing the G8 summit go
further. The G8 will also boost the privatisation of water in the
countries of the South, critics of the summit claim.
[snip]
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