The European Union’s top trade official Peter Mandelson has called on Thailand to revise its efforts to provide affordable medicines to people living with HIV and AIDS.

In a letter to the Thai Minister of Commerce, Mandelson expressed concern that Bangkok “may be taking a new approach to access to medicines” and that the approach being taken “…would be detrimental to the patent system and so to innovation and the development of new medicines.” He called on Thailand to consider other means to increase access to essential medicine among the Thai people, and to enter into direct discussions with companies holding the rights on particular drugs.

Mandeslon’s letter further demonstrates the EU’s continued approach to put profit before people, environment and development. The recently revealed European Trade Policy, talks of taking a hard nosed approach, to prise markets open and to obtain ‘real’ export opportunities for EU companies.

These latest developments cut right to the heart of the Student Stop AIDS campaign. Since our inception in 2003, we have fought to ensure that countries have the right to prioritise protection of public health, ahead of international pharmaceutical companies’ opportunity to make a profit.

Thailand has around 200,000 people living with HIV who are developing resistance to first line treatments and who desperately need access to affordable second line treatments. Earlier this year Thailand overruled patents on Kaletra, a second line Anti-AIDS drug, made by Abbott to be used solely under a public health scheme.

In his response to Mandelson, the Thai Minister of Public Health has stated that without the use of compulsory licensing, people using the public health scheme would be excluded from lifesaving treatment. Despite the reductions Abbott have announced for heat-stable Kaletra it is still prohibitively expensive for the public health scheme to use.

Mandelson’s call for the Thai government to negotiate with the patent holders seems odd given that the drugs are being used for public non-commercial purposes, and as such prior negotiation is not mandatory under TRIPS legislation.

Mandeslon’s move appears to undermine, assurances given by Gareth Thomas the undersecretary of state for international development, who following lobbying by the Stop Aids Campaign stated that;

• The British Government support Thailand’s right to use compulsory licensing provisions in order to protect public health, and in particular, to promote access to medicines for all.”

• “We agree that Thailand’s stated use of compulsory licensing provisions has not broken any WTO rules as there is no obligation to negotiate with the rights holder if the products are for public non-commercial use.

Medecins Sans Frontieres have refuted Mandelson’s claim that violating patents can have negative consequences for innovation of new medicines. According to the organisation, this claim has been disproved by a 2006 report from the World Health Organisation’s Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health. “This report shows that even with increased patent protection in developing countries, desperately needed innovation for diseases that primarily affect people in developing countries has not increased.”

This entry was posted on Friday, September 14th, 2007 at 3:20 pm and is filed under Campaign News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.