[Ip-health] IP-Watch: US Seeks Review Of WHO Publication Policy After Report On US Trade Deals

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=3D409&res=3D1024_ff&print=3D0


    28/9/2006


      US Seeks Review Of WHO Publication Policy After Report On US Trade
      Deals


By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen

A senior United States health official in Washington is urging the head
of the World Health Organization to withdraw a WHO-sponsored publication
that is critical of US trade policy, charging possible organisational
incompetence and calling for a full review of its publication procedures.

=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 William Steiger, special assistant to the secretary for
international affairs at the US Department of Health and Human Services
wrote to Acting WHO Director General Anders Nordstr=F6m in August.

The letter <http://www.ip-watch.org/files/28-09-2006%2016;21;26.PDF>,
obtained by /Intellectual Property Watch/, asserts that the joint report
of the WHO and the South Centre, the Geneva-based intergovernmental
group of developing countries, =93spuriously characterizes the trade
policy of the United States as a threat to public health, and it makes
unnecessarily inflammatory and prejudicial recommendations as to how the
United States can improve its trade policies.=94 It also =93singles out
several member states for criticism,=94 Steiger said.

Steiger said he would address the specifics of his charge in a
subsequent letter to Nordstr=F6m. In the meantime, however, he asked
Nordstr=F6m to =93withdraw this publication and remove the WHO logo from
it.=94 The report has been in the public domain for a year but was only
recently published in hard copy.

The study entitled, =93The use of flexibilities in TRIPS by developing
countries: Can they promote access to medicines?=94 was co-published by
the WHO and the South Centre, the Geneva-based intergovernmental
organisation. It was co-authored by the South Centre=92s Sisule Musungu
and WHO=92s Cecilia Oh.

The WHO declined to comment, as it normally would not comment on a
letter from a member state, a WHO spokesperson said. The department that
Oh works in, which is responsible for intellectual property issues, said
it had not been informed about the letter. Oh declined to comment for
this story.

The study was published during the comment period of a WHO intellectual
property rights commission that led to the creation of a new WHO
intergovernmental group on IP rights and public health still being set
up this autumn. The new group=92s secretariat is now headed by Howard
Zucker <http://www.who.int/dg/adg/zucker/en/>, the assistant WHO
director general for health technology and pharmaceuticals, who also
worked at the Health and Human Services Department where Steiger works,
which has raised concern among some sources that possible undue pressure
could be imposed on the IP project.

Musungu, one of the authors, told /Intellectual Property Watch/ that the
letter reveals US pressure that raises questions about whether Zucker
=93will be objective and stand the pressure that seems to be there and
allow WHO experts on these issues to participate in the process. One
hopes that he will be objective but there are obviously dark clouds now.=94

/Intellectual Property Watch/ tried to reach the HHS on numerous
occasions but was not able to get a comment by press time. Zucker=92s
office said he is currently travelling.

US officials have in the past shown concern about the way WHO may be
addressing trade issues. In expressing the United States=92 =93serious
concerns=94 about the WHO=92s decision to publish the report, Steiger said
he has been pushing this issue for several years, as past publications
contained =93incorrect or misleading information about trade agreements.=94
He also previously cited the WHO=92s =93lack of competence in this area and
its failure to consult with other relevant international organisations,
such as the World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property
Organization.=94

Steiger said he wrote on 30 March 2004 to former WHO Director General
Lee Jong-wook regarding his office=92s =93lack of review of the various
reports and studies=94 the WHO publishes. He said he was then assured that
a review process had been set up, which is why he is =93dismayed to see
the publication on flexibilities=94 that are available to developing
nations to use for public health reasons under the WTO Agreement on
Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).

Steiger said he expects a =93full review=94 of the WHO=92s publication poli=
cy
at the Executive Board meeting scheduled for January 2007.

Study Requested by Independent WHO IP Commission

One source questioned Steiger=92s argument that the WHO does not properly
review what it publishes as the study was in fact commissioned by the
WHO in October 2004. It was part of the consultation round leading to
the WHO report by the Commission on Intellectual Property Rights,
Innovation and Public Health (CIPIH), which was published in April 2006.

Twenty-two studies were commissioned by the CIPIH, and have been listed
on the CIPIH=92s website
<http://www.who.int/intellectualproperty/studies/en/>, although some of
them are not linked.

A draft version of the study in question was presented at a workshop at
the WHO in May 2005, first for an expert panel and later for all
interested parties, two attendees said. It was also available on the
CIPIH=92s website. The four topics of the workshops were: disease burden,
intellectual property, innovation and capacity building, according to
the CIPIH website. The South Centre study was presented under
=93intellectual property=94 along with eight other expert presentations.

Two of the other presenters from that panel said that they had not been
commissioned to do a study but had been given a topic by the CIPIH and
provided an expert view. A member of the WTO secretariat chaired the IP
session on these nine studies on 30 May, 2005, a source said. The final
study was ready in August 2005.

Musungu, who said he had not been informed about the letter by the WHO,
said the WHO commission asked the authors to analyse the use of TRIPS
flexibilities by developing countries. They were further asked to
examine the potential effects of bilateral and regional free trade
agreements with regards to possible impact on public health, and analyse
recent agreements.

The South Centre and the WHO split the publishing costs of the report,
which was published under a South Centre report series, and 4,000 copies
were made, Musungu said. He said the CIPIH secretariat had given the
go-ahead to publish the study.

The study and the CIPIH report lead to a resolution which again has led
to the setting up of an intergovernmental working group on intellectual
property rights at the WHO (/IPW/, Public Health, 19 September 2006
<http://ip-watch.org/weblog/wp-trackback.php?p=3D398>). It is expected to
meet for the first time on 4 December.

//