Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company
The Boston
Globe
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November 27, 1999, Saturday ,THIRD EDITION
SECTION: NATIONAL/FOREIGN; Pg. A15
LENGTH: 804 words
HEADLINE:
HEALTH GROUPS SAY POOR NATIONS NEED ACCESS TO GENERIC DRUGS
BYLINE: By Vivian Hoffmann, Globe Correspondent
BODY:
AMSTERDAM - More than 100 non-governmental
health organizations meeting here say international trade agreements should
ensure that developing nations have access to essential medicines even if it
means pharmaceutical companies could be forced to sell their licenses for
proprietary drugs to generic drug makers.
The groups, led by Nobel Peace
Prize recipient Doctors Without Borders, Health Action International, and the
Consumer Project on Technology, gathered here this week to work on solutions to
what they call the growing crisis of access to essential
medicines. The power of compulsory licensing
as a method to reduce drug prices, particularly in Third World and developing
nations, was a major theme at this week's meeting. But bilateral pressure,
mostly from the United States, has so far prevented any developing country from
using the mechanism.
Doctors Without Borders took on the campaign for
access to essential medicines, said Dr. James Orbinski, International Council
president, "quite simply, because our patients are dying." A major reason that
17 million people in developing countries die each year from infectious
diseases, he said, is that many medicines "are too expensive because of patent
protection."
The drug companies contend that compulsory
licensing will reduce profits and therefore cut investments in drug
research for serious diseases such as AIDS and cancer. But
participants at the World Health Assembly meeting said that while patents should
be recognized, sometimes public need should override patent protections.
The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property, adopted
by the World Trade Organization in 1995, sets new minimum standards for patent
protection that must be adopted by most member states by the end of this year.
Least-developed countries may apply for an extension to 2006.
The
agreement requires that countries recognize patents for medicines. Many
countries have refused to do so because patented medicines are expensive
compared with generic copies. The anti-AIDS drug fluconazole,
for example, costs $20 per day in Kenya, where it is patented,
and only 70 cents per day in Thailand, where there is generic competition.
Under the agreement, governments can force a patent-holder to license
its rights to generic manufacturers in exchange for monetary compensation.
National law sets out the conditions under which this is permitted, said Dr.
Carlos Correa, an international trade law specialist at the University of Buenos
Aires. "German law, for example, allows compulsory licensing on
the general grounds of public interest," he said.
AIDS
activists in the United States brought public attention to the government's
pressure on South Africa to modify that country's Medicines Act
earlier this year. US Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky subsequently
announced that she was removing the item from the trade agenda with South
Africa. But, says South African activist Zackie Achmat, who is
HIV-positive, the United States continues to apply more subtle pressure on South
Africa, as well as a number of other developing nations.
The United States recently negotiated agreements with Sri Lanka and
Albania that limit their grounds for granting compulsory licenses.
Thailand's Assistant Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Public
Health, Dr. Suwit Wibulpolprasert, spoke of US trade pressure on his own
country.
"We have found it necessary to be obedient to our main
customer," he said. The United States constitutes one-third of Thailand's export
market. In 1992 and again in 1999, the Thailand official said, his country
strengthened its patent law to meet US demands.
An official at the
Office of the United States Trade Representative agreed that his office pursues
patent protection in American export markets. He said the United States opposes
compulsory licensing because it discourages investment in
developing economies, and is bad for health policy in the long run.
Activists worry that the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on US
trade policy is too strong.
"Industry interests overshadow any other
concern," said Amir Attaran, a contractor for Doctors Without Borders.
Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers Association spokesman Mark Grayson
said patent rights are the lifeblood of his sector. For this reason, the
association "works very hard to be involved" in setting US trade policy, he
said.
Pharmaceutical companies spent more than $77
million on lobbying in the United States in 1998, a level surpassed only by the
tobacco industry.
In a speech that was read at the Amsterdam meeting,
Dutch Minister Eveline Herfkens condemned US policy. "We cannot accept the kind
of bilateral dealings in which one country puts pressure on another to enforce
certain laws," she stated.
LOAD-DATE: November 29, 1999
