[A2k] IP-Watch: US Investigators In Geneva To Review US Balance On IP, Public Health

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

http://ip-watch.org/weblog/wp-trackback.php?p=3D609

3 May 2007

US Investigators In Geneva To Review US Balance On IP, Public Health


By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen

A team from the independent investigative arm of the United States
Congress visited Geneva last week, interviewing insiders from the
private sector, non-governmental and international organisations
including the World Health Organization (WHO) regarding how the United
States is balancing public health, intellectual property and market
access, sources said.

The visit comes after a number of events raised questions about US
government behaviour in Geneva, including a letter from a US health
official to the WHO taking issue with its publication policy. The
series of events have led to calls for a review of alleged undue US
influence at WHO, sources said.

=93We had a team there interviewing a range of experts on the subject of
intellectual property and public health, an engagement we have
underway,=94 Loren Yager, director of International Affairs and Trade at
the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), told Intellectual
Property Watch. The GAO was asked to undertake the review by Senator
Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Representative Henry
Waxman, a California Democrat, he said.

=93The scope of the review has to do with how the United States balanced
respect for the [World Trade Organization] Doha Declaration on TRIPS
[Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights]
and public health with protecting IP rights and securing market
access,=94 Yager said.

The Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health was
agreed to at the WTO ministerial meeting in Doha, Qatar in 2001, and
reinforced flexibilities countries have under TRIPS to act in the
interest of their public health priorities.

In a 13 October 2006 press release accompanying their letter to US
Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt (IPW, Public
Health, 10 November 2006), Waxman and Kennedy presented their reasons
for requesting the investigation.

Senator Kennedy said, =93We=92ve requested this investigation to help
understand how the administration has balanced commercial drug
interests with the health needs of poor people living in developing
countries. In this era of HIV epidemics, avian flu outbreaks, and other
public health threats, it is essential that we promote good health and
access to medicines in every nation,=94 the release said.

Representative Waxman said, =93Administration trade agreements have
numerous provisions that threaten access to affordable medicine. We
have to recognise that the Bush administration=92s single-minded pursuit
of intellectual property protections for drug companies can have
potentially devastating consequences for the public health in
developing countries.=94

It is not clear exactly who the team interviewed, but Yager said, =93The
GAO team had a full week of meetings in Geneva with international
organisations, nongovernmental organisations, as well as the private
sector.=94 He could not provide details on GAO=92s ongoing discussions and
interviews under congressional protocols.

GAO is planning to complete this work =93in the fall,=94 Yager said.

Concerns May Have Led to Investigation

In August last year, William Steiger, special assistant to the
secretary for international affairs at the US Department of Health and
Human Services (HHS), wrote to Acting WHO Director General Anders
Nordstr=F6m, charging possible organisational incompetence and calling
for a full review of its publication procedures (IPW, Public Health, 28
September 2007).

Of concern was a report cosponsored by WHO and the intergovernmental
South Centre on the use of TRIPS flexibilities in developing countries.

=93The WHO Secretariat=92s decision to publish the South Centre report
seriously undermines my confidence in the veracity and reliability of
assurances I received from senior staff in the Office of the Director
General,=94 Steiger said in the letter.

In the meantime, Steiger has been appointed US ambassador to Mozambique
(but he is still with HHS) and Nordstr=F6m has been succeeded by Margaret
Chan as director general. The authors of the report, Cecilia Oh and
Sisule Musungu, have left WHO and the South Centre respectively.

This incident was one of the issues referred to in the 13 October
letter. =93Attempting to suppress a report because it is critical of US
trade policy is unacceptable. Instead, the United States should
seriously assess the impact of our trade policies in access to
medicines and public health,=94 they wrote.

Last autumn, Musungu and others also raised some concern about the
possibility of undue US influence from the appointment of WHO official
Howard Zucker, a former HHS official who joined WHO in spring 2006, to
head a WHO committee on IP, innovation and public health.

Separately, a WHO official sent an internal memo to the head of the
health organisation prompted by concern that WHO is handling new US
criticism in a less transparent way than it has in the past, sources
said (IPW, Public Health, 10 November 2006).

Kennedy and Waxman also referred to the separate letter of request they
sent to GAO on 27 September: =93We have asked GAO to assess whether the
formal and informal mechanisms of US trade policy conform to the
congressional directive to respect the Doha commitment to public
health.=94

GAO is the non-partisan audit, evaluation, and investigative arm of
Congress and was established as the General Accounting Office.

Tove Gerhardsen may be reached at tgerhardsen@ip-watch.ch.

---------------------------------
Thiru Balasubramaniam
Geneva Representative
Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)
voice +41.22.791.6727
fax +41.22.723.2988
mobile +41 76 508 0997
thiru@keionline.org