02.05.2008
The Troublemakers
Showcase initiatives concerning pharmaceutical patents
Alternatives to the Patenting of Health
"How did you manage that?" asked Suwit Wibulpolprasert, Chef Advisor for Health Economy in the Thai Ministry of Public, unbelievingly. "All the troublemakers in the pharmaceutical patents business are here." The conversation took place in the Mecklenburg State Office in Berlin in May 2008, only weeks before demonstrators from all over the world gathered at the G8 summit in Heiligendamm. Under the motto "Patients, Patents, Profits" Medico International, and other relief organisations had organized a symposium which, in the name of the human right to equal access to health, took a critical look at the world of intellectual property rights and patents in the health sector. A hidden world in which every day, behind the closed doors of the pharmaceutical companies, the lives of thousands of people are haggled over and decided upon– with devastating results: preferential treatment is given to lifestyle substances devoid of any great medical use and to the detriment of millions of excluded people for whose sicknesses no medicines have been developed as they are not solvent customers. As a result, 13 million people die every year of sicknesses like pneumonia, malaria, Aids, and tuberculosis, partly because the medicines needed are not available. It is easy to criticise this. However in Berlin the over hundred scientists, politicians, employees of State and non-State development cooperation organisations, as well as the activists of pharma-political networks, reached some surprising answers which the Medico report 27 is now making available to both the general public and specialists. All the participants agreed that, just like schoolbooks, newspapers and public transport, medicines are part of a "social infrastructure", without which societies cannot function. Setting priorities in R+D and guaranteeing low-cost access to vital medicines for everyone are therefore public responsicilities and cannot be left to the market. This task can only be realized outside of patent law and only if universities and pharmaceutical companies can be motivated to develop, produce and distribute such medicines. This could be realized with an internationally-binding treaty in which States declare their willingness to commit the necessary funding. A proposal which, in the eyes of the profiteers of the current Patent Law, made Medico's symposium a gathering of "Troublemakers".
United Colors of Health in Kenya
The Child and Family Wellness Shops in Kenya are a very different type of "Troublemaker". The Sustainable Healthcare Foundation (SHF) is making clever use of market mechanisms for a nationwide network of people's pharmacies which aim to ensure affordable access to medicine particularly in remote, rural areas. With a franchise system similar to that of a globally-operating Italian pullover producer, local operators organise child and family health Shops. Quality control and supplies of medicine and medical equipment have been contractually agreed upon with the SHF. The health Shops offer includes a wide range of services from mother-child-clinics with trained nurses to the classic pharmacy. The personnel receives basic training in medicines, ordering systems and in patient care. Besides low-cost medicines the Shops also provide vital prevention articles such as condoms, mosquito nets treated with insecticides(against malaria) and water disinfection tablets. The aim of the pharmacies is to establish a nationwide and inexpensive supply of medicines also at a local level.
In 2007 Medico supported networks and projects to ensure universal access to medicines not only at home nor only in Kenya, but also in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Bangladesh, Nicaragua, Guatemala and in Brazil. It is not due to us that these networks and these projects will continue to be run by "Troublemakers" in the future. "Power to the people"–40 years on, John Lennon's slogan has lost none of its meaning or authority.
Campaign Ensures Generic Production of AIDS Medicine
Today it is the accepted policy of every globallyoperating corporation to "soften" the "collateral damage" resulting from a profit-oriented pharmaceutical policy with donations of medicines to the poor. This is however not enough, as 10,787 people proved, protesting with their signatures against a patent application for Nevirapine Syrup for the treatment of HIV-positive children. The lists of signatories were presented to representatives of the pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim on 1st December, World AIDS Day, in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt. In future Boehringer will forego its patent rights, at least in the developing countries. An initial success, fought for and gained by Medico, the BUKO Pharma Campaign, the AIDS Aid network and Attac. The struggle for the permanent access to affordable, essential medicines for everyone is far from over.
Bernd Eichner / Christoph Goldmann