[Pharm-policy] More on USG at WHO meeting

[James Love]

I talked to a second person in Geneva regarding the World Health
Assembly Executive Board (EB) Meeting.  Dr. Tom Novotny is leading the
US Delegation.  He works for Sec. Shalala at DHHS, and he apparently
surprised everyone by saying the US government was opposed to the EB
resolution language on WHO providing advice to countries on IPR/Trade
issues, as it relates to the HIV/AIDS crisis.  

Dr. Novonty reportedly said that this was something for the WTO or WIPO,
(institutions that historically have had the mission of raising levels
of IPR protections) and that the US would offer some "new language" on
this section. He also said he wanted the EB resolution on AIDS to more
reflect the perspectives from the IFPMA (the big Pharma) roundtable, so
he wasn't pulling any punches.

People were pretty shocked because (a) they thought this issue had been
settled in 1999 with the approval of the much debated Revised Drug
Strategy, which called for WHO to do this, and (b) President Clinton and
VP Gore had both made recently highly publicized speaches about how the
US health authories are going to participate in reviews of US trade
policy, particuarly in the context on HIV/AIDS.

One African country was going to offer as a substitute for the language
in paragraph 2.7 the exact language the World Health Assembly passed
last year, to force the US to formally oppose something it had already
voted for (albeit something they had lobbied against for 2 years).

Big Pharam has been very unhappy with WHO involvement in trade issues,
particularly after the WHO issued the Red Book/Blue Book, which
explained to countries how the TRIPS works and what types of things they
could do under the TRIPS to enhance access to essential drugs.  The
publication of these documents came at a time when the US government and
the industry was telling countries a much different story about what
TRIPS required.  WHO was seen by many as providing a "public defender"
type service to the poor countries, giving them some talking points they
could use against the very aggressive and powerful US government and
industry lobbying efforts.  The US was very unhappy about this, but we
had thought that the US position had moderated and that they had
accepted this.  Dr. Novotny's comments reflected more the old hardline
viewpoint that was evident prior to May 1999, and was not expected
given the President and VP speeches on trade policy.

The Clinton/Gore administration have to know how this will be perceived
by the groups that worked so hard for two years to get the Revised Drug
Strategy passed, and so it is a provcotative statement, to say the
least.  Even more so is the fact that Dr. Novotny is doing in the
context of the WHO resolution on HIV/AIDS, and that at the same time, he
is officially asking that the WHO analysis of the HIV/AIDS problem be
replaced with language drafted by the drug companies.

One has to wonder who is making the decisions about this for now.  This
had to be cleared by Shalala, and there is evidence that policy on this
issue (the trade and health controversy) is being reviewed John Podesta,
the White House chief of staff, who apparently modified some of the
provisions of the President's December 1 WTO annoucements.  

I'll ask the Gore people if they agree with the rest of the
Administration on the USG proposal to stop the WHO from providing
information to poor countries on IPR issues, as they relate to AIDS.

    Jamie


James Love, Consumer Project on Technology    
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