"We don't work for consumers in Argentina or Africa, and we don't care about public health issues there." That was how the US deputy assistant trade representative for intellectual property responded two years ago to a suggestion that the US trade representative (USTR) should approach pharmaceutical patent policies as a public health issue rather than as a trade issue.
This cruel and callous comment remains official US policy, which subordinates the health interests of people all over the globe to the narrow demands of US pharmaceutical companies.
In May 1998, Clinton administration officials went into diplomatic overdrive to subvert an effort at the World Health Organisation (WHO) to establish the common-sense principle that people should matter more than profits when it comes to access to essential drugs.
WHO's governing body, the World Health Assembly, had before it a proposal to urge countries "to ensure that public-health interests rather than commercial interests have 'primacy' in pharmaceutical and health policies". With most of the world ready to adopt this principle, the United States baulked.
Acting at the behest of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA), the US suggested instead that "public health and commercial interests [be] handled in a compatible manner" — a banal and meaningless notion.
When the world body moved toward a compromise that would have preserved the critical principle that public health concerns should take priority over mercantile interests, the US representatives successfully engaged in underhanded parliamentary manoeuvres to have the whole issue deferred indefinitely.
The World Health Assembly conflict is the latest episode in the US government's reprobate crusade to force other countries to adopt straitjacketing intellectual property rules for the benefit of drug kingpins such as Bristol Myers Squib, Eli Lilly, Merck and Johnson & Johnson.
Strict patent rules provide extended legalised monopolies for drug companies. The companies say they need long monopoly periods to recoup their research and development costs. But no-one genuinely disputes that monopolies raise costs to consumers and that competition by generic (non-brand name) drugs lowers prices.
Many developing countries have pursued flexible policies designed to satisfy consumer needs for affordable drugs and to foster the creation of domestic manufacturers.
So too did virtually every industrialised country at some point in its development — many European countries began recognising drug patents only in the 1970s.
The diverse pro-health patent policies which countries have maintained in recent years include:
- compulsory licensing, which requires patent holders to license their products (typically at a profit) to competitors;
- shorter patent terms than the 20 years now required in international trade agreements;
- respect for patents on processes, but not products (meaning competitors can imitate a product if they can figure out a different way to make it); and
- parallel imports — allowing distributors to buy a patented product in one country and sell it in another, to prevent patent holders from charging extra-high prices in some countries.
Countries with less strict pharmaceutical patent policies, which until recently included Canada as well as Argentina, Brazil and India, tend to have better developed domestic industries and often dramatically cheaper prices.
India, which had virtually no domestic pharmaceutical manufacturers prior to 1970, saw a thriving industry evolve after adopting a more flexible patent policy that enabled domestic companies to compete with the multinationals.
In the last decade, however, the US has successfully battled for the inclusion of strict intellectual property rules in international trade agreements such as NAFTA and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
Often, the US position has been drafted by the PhRMA. Those trade agreements disregard public health considerations. Yet, the PhRMA is not satisfied. And when the PhRMA is not happy, the USTR is not happy.
In recent years, the USTR has imposed or threatened trade sanctions against numerous countries that have adopted public health measures which are permitted under relevant trade agreements. In many cases, USTR has complained vociferously about companies maintaining public health policies similar or identical to US law.
Argentina, South Africa, Brazil, Cyprus, Israel and many others have all felt the sting of USTR threats or sanctions.
It is time to put an end to the US drug imperialism. People's lives are at stake in these pharmaceutical policy decisions. The US could begin to break with its unhealthy past by agreeing to the modest principle that, at least when it comes to drug policies, public health should count more than the commercial concerns of the pharmaceutical industry.
[Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington DC-based Corporate Crime Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington DC-based Multinational Monitor. The above article is taken from their weekly column "Focus on the Corporation", distributed by Third World Network Features. Third World Network is accessible on the web at Third World Network (TWN) (archived by Internet Archive).]