E-DRUG: Proposed TACD resolution on access to health care
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[crossposted from Pharm-Policy with thanks; NN]
Proposed TACD resolution on access to health care
Draft April 11, 2001
James Love, version 1.0
1. The United States and the European Union and its member countries
should enter into agreements with the World Health Organization, UNAIDS,
UNICEF and other global public health organizations, to enable these
organizations to use patents that were developed with public support, to
expand access to health care in poor countries.
2. The US and the EU should support in a communication to the WTO TRIPS
council that they will support policies that ensure that compulsory
licensing of medicines will also benefit small market countries, and
specifically, that mechanisms to enable production of medicines for
export markets will be supported when such exports benefit the public
health and the legitimate rights of patent owners are protected in the
markets where the products are used.
3. The US and the EU should communicate to the WTO TRIPS Council that
they support an exemption from the TRIPS obligation to provide patents
on medicines for the least developed countries, as is permitted under
the TRIPS agreement.
4. The US and the EU should support the NGO call for a global convention
on supporting R&D, including support for AIDS and malaria vaccines, low
cost diagnostic technologies and other appropriate technologies, new
drugs for tuberculosis, malaria and other neglected diseases, as well as
other global R&D efforts, such as basic research, development of drugs
for severe illnesses, and other research that benefits the public
health.
5. The US and the EU should ask WIPO, WHO and the WTO to report on the
capacity of poor countries to evaluate patent claims on medical
inventions, the costs of doing so, and the costs and feasibility of
patent litigation in poor countries, and the policy implications of the
capacity of poor countries to examine and litigate patent claims.
6. The US and the EU should ask WIPO, WHO and the WTO to propose
alternative methods of burden sharing for R&D for poor countries that
cannot effectively manage a European and US system patent system.
7. The US and the EU should ask the G7 countries to support sufficient
levels of donor support for health care needs in poor countries, and
that this donor support not be tied to country policies on patents or
other intellectual property concerns.
8. The US and the EU should avoid subsidies and donor programs that have
anticompetitive consequences, lack transparency, and are not
economically efficient.
9. The US and the EU should support true technology transfer policies
with the developing countries, and not undermine national efforts to
develop domestic pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.
10. The US should withdraw its WTO action against Brazil on the Brazil
compulsory licensing legislation. If the US wants to test local working
issues in the context of the TRIPS it should address this issue in
disputes with OECD member countries that have such provisions in their
own national laws.
11. The US and the EU should not insist that countries adopt protections
under Article 39.3 of the TRIPS that would be anticompetitive or
undermine compulsory licensing.
12. The US and the EU should report to the TACD on the efforts that are
being undertaken to improve the quality of generic drugs in poor
countries.
--
James Love
Consumer Project on Technology
P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
http://www.cptech.org
love@cptech.org
1.202.387.8030 fax 1.202.234.5176