[Ip-health] Note for Ambassador Zoellick

[James Love]

Ambassador Zoellick,

     There must be a big misunderstanding at USTR over paragraph 6, and
maybe you should think this through a bit.  Paragraph 6 isn't a call to
issue compulsory licenses on patents for all medicines on all diseases
in all countries that qualify for paragraph 6.   It would simple make it
possible to benefit from a compulsory license in the event that one is
issued.  Of course, there is no reason to believe this will be problem
for the pharmaceutical industry.  After all, they can import pretty much
anything now from India, which doesn't have patents.  Maybe you can ask
your own staff how often this has led to either compulsory licensing
being issued or being threatened.  There are some cases, but probably
far too few rather than far too many.  It certainly isn't the scenario
that you are describing to African trade ministers and countless
reporters.   I don't think it is good in the long run for USTR to
misrepresent the issues in an important negotiation, particularly this
one that is so important to the poor.

  Jamie

PS, Why do you think it is bad policy for a poor country to issue a
compulory license for an overpriced drug for cancer that the poor cannot
afford?  Noting that the Doha Declaration says countries "should"
implement TRIPS in a manner that promotes access to medicine for all.
How are they supposed to promote access to all if they can't use at
least the threat of a compulsory licensing to bring down unaffordable
prices?


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Ip-health] Zoellick on NGOs, P6 (from 1/16 press conference)
Date: Tue, 04 Feb 2003 15:26:25 -0500
From: Mike Palmedo <mpalmedo@cptech.org>
Organization: CPTech
To: IP-Health list <ip-health@venice.essential.org>

FOR FULL TRANSCIPT, SEE:
http://www.ustr.gov/releases/2003/01/2003-01-16-transcript-mauritius.PDF

USTR Zoellick
Media Roundtable
Mauritius
January 16, 2003


[snip]

Question: [unintelligible] were there any concerns that were raised by
the Africans, and is it correct to say that you are pushing for a
African-American [unintelligible]?

USTR Zoellick: Well certainly there were concerns raised, I mean that's
the nature of the discussion. So whether it be capacity building, we had
a good discussion on TRIPS and medicine. And one of the problems we run
into, is that, you know for a number of African capitals, they get their
information about this from NGO's, and NGO's sometimes don't represent
our position carefully. And so I had a number of African Ministers come
up and say "we're really pleased to understand what you are trying to
do." Because I was pointing out that the problem that we saw on that
issue was that, more and more countries wanted to have the ability to
import from third countries, which was what this was about, including
countries that have very strong pharmaceutical industries. And so you
expand it, the set of countries that were supposed to use this special
privilege, to about 120. And then some countries wanted to expand the
scope of disease. So if you take what's supposed to be an exception for
special circumstance, expand it to almost every country except the OECD
countries, and then you expand it to every disease, you've kind of blown
a hole in the whole intellectual property regime. And for example,
Minister Malie of Lesotho, said that's certainly not their intention,
because they understand the role of intellectual property.

[snip]




--
Mike Palmedo
Consumer Project on Technology
T-202-387-8030
F-202-234-5176
mpalmedo@cptech.org
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--
James Love, Director, Consumer Project on Technlogy
http://www.cptech.org, mailto:james.love@cptech.org
tel. +1.202.387.8030, mobile +1.202.361.3040