[Ip-health] Forcing policy makers to address Medical Apartheid

[Sharonann Lynch]

As Jamie noted, Phrma's survey of patents in Africa was presented at 
last week's Health and Human Rights Conference in Philadelphia. 
During the discussion, the Merck representative actually said: "well, 
if you take Kenya and South Africa out of the mix, then you see the 
number of patents on AIDS drugs really go down." And in a tidy 
powerpoint presentation he cited the "18% of ARVs in Africa are 
patented" and only "3% of OI drugs are patented in Africa" statistics.

What's disconcerting is that policy head Dr. Julie Cleves of UNAIDS 
trotted out the same 18% statistic when asked if the Global AIDS Fund 
would purchase generic versions of patented drugs during a meeting 
with Health GAP on 10/4/01.

My question is: What work is being done to address the real 
implications of policy shaped by pharma's favorite statistics. It 
seems that activists and allies need to refute bad analysis and 
faulty conclusions before they are used further to shape or defend 
bad policy, both for the Global Fund and the possible ministerial 
declaration on TRIPS.

Note: the Transitional Working Group of the Global AIDS and Health 
Fund will be meeting in Brussells next week, Oct 11-12, to discuss 
the purpose, scope, and principles of the Fund.

In addition to educating policy makers (giving some the benefit of 
the doubt here), we need to equip fellow activists and allies with 
information to refute damaging pharma spin.  To this end, Health GAP 
has prepared 2 documents for attendees of the ICAAP conference this 
weekend: "Myths and Realities" addresses among other issues, the 
threat ofdwindling R&D due to "patent piracy" and the assertion that 
patents are not barriers to access. The "MEDICAL APARTHEID: Patents, 
public health and access to medicines" document addresses the 
possible Doha declaration on TRIPS and public health.

the documents can be downloaded at:
www.globaltreatmentaccess.org/MYTHS.pdf
www.globaltreatmentaccess.org/TRIPS.pdf



Sharonann Lynch
Health GAP (Global Access Project)
+1 212 674-9598
salynch@healthgap.org




>
>  >
>  > During a patents aren't the problem presentation by Phrma last
>  > weekend at the Health and Human Rights Conference in Philadelphia,
>>  the representative actually said: "well, if you take Kenya and South
>>  Africa out of the mix, then you see the number of patents on AIDS
>>  drugs really go down."
>>
>>  And in a tidy powerpoint presentation he cited the "18% of ARVs in
>>  Africa are patented" and only "3% of OI drugs are patented in
>>  Africa." What's disconcerting is that policy head Dr. Julie Cleves of
>  > UNAIDS trotted out the same 18% statistic when asked if the Global
>  > AIDS Fund would purchase generic versions of patented drugs.