E-drug: The WTO and Access to Generics: Act Up
---------------------------------------------
Act Up-Paris
Press Statement - December 5, 2002
At the Ministerial Conference in Doha the Member States of the WTO
committed themselves to granting all countries which are not
producing pharmaceuticals access to generics by the end of 2002 via
exports from the producing countries.
In approving the declaration on TRIPS and Public Health these Member
States committed themselves to finding a solution suitable for the
whole scope of public health problems in all the countries that are
not capable of producing the health products they need.
Since then and once again at the last meeting of the TRIPS Council on
November 25-27 some developed countries-the United States, the
European Union, Switzerland, Canada, Japan and Australia-have been
trying to renege on these commitments and force developing countries
to ratify an agreement which is totally unsuitable to answer their
identified needs. Thus they reject the solution put forward by
developing countries which is favored by the WHO, France, Belgium,
the Netherlands and the European Parliament.
The situation is extremely serious. The implementation of the
intellectual property agreements by the 144 Member States of the WTO
will lead to a drastic restriction of the access to all patented
medicines, in particular new treatments, in poor countries.
Globalization of trade exchanges through the imposition of international
regulations cannot be limited to the protection of the interests of a few
multinational corporations at the expense of the health needs of the great
majority of people.
The U.N. agencies have just published the figures on the spread of
the AIDS epidemic : 42 million people are infected and a quarter of
them should have access to treatments immediately. At the same time
all health indicators show that hepatitis C is spreading at an almost
epidemic rate everywhere in the world. Each day 40 000 people die of
infectious diseases and nobody knows what other diseases may threaten
mankind in the coming years.
The great majority of countries hardest hit by these diseases are not
capable of producing for themselves the treatments their own people need.
This is why countries which are capable of producing generics must be
allowed to export them in necessary quantities and as quickly as
possible to those countries that are in need of them. Each country
must have access to medicines, active ingredients, test kits,
reagents etc... as quickly and as simply as if it were capable of
producing them itself.
This must be the case for all diseases without any restrictions placed on
beneficiaries and suppliers, and without the WTO regulating and
controlling the public health policies implemented by governments.
If no really suitable solution can be found in the coming days or if a
restrictive, unworkable solution is imposed when the General Council
meets on December 11 and 12, 2002, developed countries will be
responsible for an unprecedented international crisis. It will thus
show that international agreements which were to a large extent
imposed on poor countries cannot deal with such issues as essential
as those
that concern the health of the world's population : hence the framework
itself of these intellectual property agreements will have to be
reviewed as quickly as possible
Media contact:
Ga�lle Krikorian : + 33 6 09 17 70 55
Act Up-Paris
Olivier Jablonski <ojablonski@free.fr>
--
To send a message to E-Drug, write to: e-drug@usa.healthnet.org
To subscribe or unsubscribe, write to: majordomo@usa.healthnet.org
in the body of the message type: subscribe e-drug OR unsubscribe e-drug
To contact a person, send a message to: e-drug-help@usa.healthnet.org
Information and archives: http://www.essentialdrugs.org/edrug