AFRO-NETS> Public Health vs. Commercial Interests

[Claudio Schuftan <aviva@netnam.vn>]

Public Health vs. Commercial Interests
--------------------------------------

CHRISTMAS AT WTO: 15 MILLION PEOPLE DIED IN 2002

The dramatic collapse of the WTO negotiations on the export of gener-
ics can easily be explained. For a whole year a number of rich coun-
tries had only one objective: to renege on the Doha principle that 
public health has precedence over commercial interests.

The United States taking the position of the International Federation 
of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Association, did its utmost to 
restrict the scope of the debate to a few diseases. Such a position 
is contrary to the Doha declaration and totally unjustifiable from a 
public health point of view. The European Union tried to impose a 
complex and burdensome system which would have been totally unwork-
able and thus would have limited the flow of generics.

Never did these countries respect the mandate that they had assigned 
to themselves: to ensure access as quickly as possible to generic 
copies of medicines in all the countries where the strict enforcement 
of intellectual property constitutes a major barrier to access to 
health care and treatments.

In the last few weeks, flouting the very first principle of negotia-
tions, these countries resorted to all kinds of pressures and forms 
of intimidation possible to force developing countries to accept an 
agreement. The draft accord was totally inadequate to address the 
public health needs of developing countries, but would have made it 
possible for rich countries to forget this question for ever, and in-
creased the power of pharmaceutical companies. The draft accord to-
tally limited the scope of the Doha declaration and required a hege-
monic respect of intellectual property rules everywhere in the world.

After endless meetings, as it was not possible for developing coun-
tries to accept an accord on drugs covering only three diseases, the 
United States remained intransigent and chose to block the text.

What is the end result of it all? In one year 15 million people have 
died of infectious diseases. It has been shown that the indiscrimi-
nate implementation of intellectual property rules prevalent in de-
veloped countries is inappropriate for these developing countries. 
Concerning healthcare, multinational corporations do not need the 
markets of these countries to recoup their research and development 
costs and make huge profits. Nevertheless, their monopoly profits 
continue to kill people.

The WTO negotiations were supposed to adapt the framework of interna-
tional agreements to the real needs of the people living in develop-
ing countries concerning a fundamental sector: public health. They 
failed to do so.

The WTO has proved unable to guarantee fair negotiations which serve 
not only the interests of private companies, but also those of the 
member states of the organization. The TRIPS agreement has turned out 
to be unable to take any interests except commercial interests into 
account.

As rich countries have refused to think seriously about the public 
health issue and to get seriously involved in negotiations, they have 
shown that the system they have chosen to impose on the rest of the 
world is ineffective and dangerous. 
Contact: mailto:galk@noos.fr

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