At Christmas, we traditionally retell Dickens's story of Scrooge, who cared more for money than for his fellow human beings. What would we think of a Scrooge who could cure diseases that blighted thousands of people's lives but did not do so? Clearly, we would be horrified. But this has increasingly been happening in the name of economics, under the innocent sounding guise of "intellectual property rights."
Health equity in economic and trade policies
Scrooge and intellectual property rights
Stiglitz JE: British Medical Journal 333: 1279-1280, 23 December 2006
The new famines: Why famines persist in an era of globalisation
Devereux S: Routledge, 2007
Contemporary famines are either deliberately created or allowed to happen. This new book collection argues for a conceptual shift in famine analysis: from understanding famines as failures of food availability or access, to understanding famines as failures of response. New concepts introduced in this collection include ‘famine intensity and magnitude scales’, ‘pre-modern, modern, and post-modern’ famines, ‘hidden famines’, and ‘priority regimes’. Case studies include famines that have occurred since the 1980s in Ethiopia, Sudan, Malawi, Madagascar, Iraq and North Korea, and a ‘near-famine’ in Bosnia.
Vote buying in the UN Security Council
Woodward D: The Lancet 369: 12-13, 6 January 2007
In an increasingly globalised world, health is ever more affected by international institutions. Over the past 25 years, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO) have increasingly dominated policymaking in developing countries, leading to substantial effects on health. Furthermore, global threats to health, such as HIV/AIDS, severe acute respiratory syndrome, avian influenza, and climate change, need eff ective collective action at the international level. Therefore the system of global governance is of central, and growing, importance to health. However, global governance is becoming increasingly controversial, particularly in the case of global economic institutions.
AIDS drugs for Africa deal is off as pharma giants pull out
Townsend A: The Independent, 3 December 2006
Some of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies, including FTSE 100 giant GlaxoSmithKline, are reported to have failed to sign a formal agreement that would ensure HIV and AIDS patients in poor nations receive vital drugs. The agreement was drawn up during three years of talks between companies and the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), which has 20 million members and 400 affiliated unions worldwide.
An untapped supply of HIV/AIDS treatment
The Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), 11 December 2006
Thousands of people living with AIDS in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are going without treatment while the production line at a modern antiretroviral (ARV) factory in the east of the country lies largely idle. Pharmakina has produced generic ARVs since April 2005 in the eastern province of Bukavu, the first pharmaceutical firm to do so in central Africa, but it is now forced to await approval from the World Health Organization (WHO).
WHO needs to get serious about high cost of new AIDS drugs
Raja K: Third World Network Info Service on Health Issues, 30 November 2006
The World Health Organisation (WHO) needs to get serious about high cost of new AIDS drugs. AIDS treatment will not be sustainable unless international institutions get serious about the high cost of newer medicines. This warning comes from Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) the medical humanitarian organisation. MSF says that the WHO has failed to outline a strategy to help countries access these drugs which remain largely inaccessible in developing countries. Thailand uses compulsory licence for cheaper AIDS drug. Thailand, however, has for the first time announced it will issue a compulsory licence for the domestic manufacture of a key AIDS drug. The following articles report on both these issues.
Behind closed doors: Secrecy at the International Financial Institutions
Musuva C: IFI Transparency, 2006
This study involved making freedom of information requests for information on IFIs in five different countries: Bulgaria; Mexico; Slovakia; South Africa and Argentina. The study found that information was difficult to obtain and there were varying degrees of disclosure across countries, with only 22 per cent of the 120 requests resulting in full disclosure and a number of requests being totally ignored by the IFIs. The Charter is the GTI's flagship statement of the standards to which IFI information disclosure policies should conform and a key advocacy tool for the promotion of more progressive policies.
Civil society excluded from the G20 business meeting
Melbourne IndyMedia, November 2006
The G20 is a private meeting, hence organisations such as corporations, aid agencies, consumer organisations and other non-government organisations (NGOs) are not eligible to attend as delegates. This report critiques the selective participation of business in the meeting, with some of the world’s largest energy and mining companies reported to have full access to all the delegates at a working lunch. The report noted the cincidental holding of the inaugural meeting of the Energy and Minerals Business Council in the same hotel and dates as the formal meeting of the G20.
Hear our voices: How climate change is hurting Africa
IRIN News, 22 November 2006
The United Nations global climate change conference in Nairobi agreed that African countries remain the most vulnerable to climate change, whose effects are manifested in extreme weather conditions, ranging from prolonged drought to massive flooding. These changes have consequences for food production and for the spread of infectious diseases.
Patents versus patients: Five years after the Doha declaration
Oxfam International, November 2006
This Oxfam briefing paper discusses the actions that countries have taken towards meeting their obligations made at the Doha Declaration on the TRIPs (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement and Public health in November 2001. The Declaration says that developing countries can enforce public health safeguards to enable price reductions on medicines, and that countries with insufficient drug manufacturing capacity can access generic medicines (medicines produced in developing countries which are cheaper than brand name drugs). The paper finds that although public health safeguards have been weakened or eliminated through bilateral and regional free trade agreements, many developing countries are still managing to enforce them.