[Pharm-policy] Another on threats against WHO essential drugs official

[love@cptech.org]

Babelfish transation of another article, from Mundo.  Jamie

http://oglobo.globo.com/mundo/589320.htm

 
Threats of death in the OMS 
Deborah Berlinck 
Geneva Correspondent 

Ocoordenador of the program of the World-wide Organization of Saúde
(OMS) for medicines, Germán Velásquez, is under death threat. The case,
that launchs serious suspicion on the pharmaceutical industry and
involves a series of incidents in the River, in Miami and the France,
mobilized the route of an agency of the ONU that is in the center of the
international controversy on reduction of prices of remedies, over all
the essentials, as medicines of combat to the AIDS. 

Three governments officially had been informed -- Brazil, Africa of Sul
and Colombia -- as well as two not-governmental organizations, the
Doctors without Borders, of Paris, and the Oxfam, of London. 

The OMS is trying to keep the case under secrecy. The spokesman of the
organization, Gregory Harlt, said that the job of security of the ONU is
mobilized to clarify the episode. But if he refused to confirm the
details: 

-- I cannot confirm or declare nothing at this moment -- he broke off
conversation. 

The succession of incidents involving the Columbian doctor Velásquez, a
critic of the performance of the pharmaceutical industry in the question
of essential remedies, started in day 26 of May in the River, in the
Atlantic Avenue. The path of a meeting of the OMS in Miami, Velásquez
passed for the River to go to the ownership of Jorge Bermudez in the
route of the National School of Public Health, of the Fiocruz. 

For rollback of 23h, it left the hotel in Copacabana to eat. Walking for
Atlantic, the two boys they had threatened it with a knife, commanding
that it delivered the clock. It argued that it was only one Swatch (the
more cheap Swiss clock) and finished approximately with a wound of seven
centimeters in the pulse, without the clock and the jacket. 

What it seemed to be a simple assault in the River, however, gained
another dimension in Miami, two days later. Walking in a called street
Lincoln Road, it it was attacked by two men. They had pushed it against
the wall of a building and one of them, with a gun, said: " We go to
kill you ". Velásquez would have started to cry, arguing that it had
four children. One of the men, then, would have make reference to a
reference the assault of the River, and said: " Not if goal with the
pharmaceutical industry ". 

The employee of the OMS bound for its superiors in Geneva, where it is
the headquarters of the organization, and he informed them. But the
threats had not stopped there. In return Geneva, it already received
three phone calls more than intimidatórios. In one of them, the person
said that it would not have to go to a meeting convoked for the
World-wide Organization of Commerce to debate the agreement of copyright
that compels the countries to respect patents. It asked who was
speaking, and the person answered: " Lincoln Road ", in a reference the
Miami. 

Now, not only the security of the ONU was mobilized as also the policy
of France, since the phone calls had been made for the house of
Velásquez in Ferney Voltaire, one vilarejo French in the border with
Switzerland, the ten minutes of carriage of the headquarters of the OMS. 

Looked for for the GLOBE, Velásquez if refused to speak and asked for
that the spokesman of the OMS was contactado. The details, however, had
been confirmed to the GLOBE for some sources that had directly heard the
history of the employee of the ONU, and also consist of telegrams
diplomatists sent to the capitals. The mission diplomatics of together
Brazil to the ONU, in Geneva, did not want to comment the subject. 

Two entities of the pharmaceutical industry -- the International
Federacy of the National Associations of the Pharmaceutical Industry,
with headquarters in Geneva, and the Association Européia de Generic
Medicamentos -- had not wanted to comment the subject. A representative
of the industry of generic, however, that she spoke in the condition of
not being identified, classified the stranger episode and said that she
does not obtain to understand who of the industry, of the string of tip
in research or of generic, she could benefit itself with a so low act. 

Phil Bloomer, of the Oxfam, one of the ONGs that folloies the case, said
in an official notice: " we were informed by the OMS on this serious
situation and take this episode extremely the serious one. We wait that
the inquiry quickly discloses to the reasons and the responsible actors
for these attacks and threats the German ".