[Ip-health] James Love on Lieberman's letter opposing Thai CLs

[Benjamin Krohmal]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-love/senator-lieberman-and-
fou_b_44821.html

James Love
04.02.2007
Senator Lieberman and Four Others Rap Thailand Compulsory Licenses on
Non-AIDS Drugs (8 comments )

Senator Joe Lieberman and four democrats (Menendez D-NJ, Lautenberg D-
NJ, Carper D-Del, Feinsten D-CA) in the Senate have asked U.S. Trade
Representative Susan Schwab to rough up Thailand over its plans to
issue compulsory licenses on drug patents for diseases other than
AIDS, TB or malaria.

[The WTO's FAQ on the use of compulsory licenses is on the web here:
http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/public_health_faq_e.htm ]

In their March 20, 2007 letter
[ http://www.keionline.org/misc-docs/liebermanplus4.pdf ], the five
Senators described the Thai government's proposals as "a government
policy to expropriate patents on all manner of innovative medicines
not used to address urgent public health needs." Drafted by
Lieberman, the letter focuses most importantly on this issue: Should
a developing country be able to use compulsory licenses to promote
access to medicines for the same diseases that are common in the
United States, such as cancer, heart disease or diabetes? Or should
they only use such measures to deal with AIDS, a disease that has
drawn considerable high profile attention among politicians and
celebrities.

There is no medical reason why Thailand should only use compulsory
licenses to obtain inexpensive generics for the treatment of AIDS.
People in Thailand suffer from all sorts of diseases, including
everything we face here, and the prices charged by big drug companies
are far beyond that which the average wage earner in Thailand can
afford. This is the reality on the ground in almost every developing
country, where drug companies typically target wealthy elites when
setting prices.

In order to give their letter an appearance of the moral high ground,
the Senators offer what is part of the big lie strategy put forth by
pharmaceutical industry PR agents. The Senators "do not believe that
WTO members intended those rules to be used to allow compulsory
licenses on any medicine whatsoever as a matter of standard
government policy. . . " In fact, as is well known by Lieberman's own
staff, the WTO rules on patents and compulsory licenses clearly allow
precisely the measures that Thailand has undertaken. There is no
limit on the scope of diseases in the WTO TRIPS agreement, and
indeed, no requirement that compulsory licenses even be limited to
patents on medicines.

The day after Thailand was criticized by these Senators, Italy issued
compulsory licenses
[ http://www.agcm.it/agcm_eng/COSTAMPA/E_PRESS.NSF/
92e82eb9012a8bc6c125652a00287fbd/28653b373e56772ac12572ab003a4d68 ]
for patents on a drug used to treat prostate problems. Since June of
2006, the U.S. government has issued compulsory licenses on patents
at least five times, including licenses on patents for software,
Direct TV's set-top box, a Toyota transmission, a J&J medical device,
and computer memory chips. None of these were mentioned in the
Senator's letter, which says that Thailand's actions "raise grave
concerns about the investment climate in Thailand." [These and more
examples here:
http://www.keionline.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=41 ]

Meanwhile, Tommy Thompson, the former DHHS Secretary and current
Republican candidate for President, has also criticized the Thailand
government, but on March 23 he also offered this good advice:

     "In this increasingly complex environment, governments also have
a duty to talk and exercise diplomacy to address not only this
symptom, but to put into place a framework that considers the larger
global public health need -- the balancing act between innovation and
access."

Tommy Thompson's comment points to a positive way forward. The World
Health Organization has created a new "Intergovernmental Working
Group" or IGWG, to look at precisely these issues -- how does one
reconcile both innovation and access, when most of the world's
population earns so little? The Congress should look at the IGWG
process and come up with something more appealing than telling most
of the world they deserve second-class access to medicines for
diseases it's not currently fashionable to care about.