PHA-Exchange> World health: A lethal dose of US politics

[claudio at hcmc.netnam.vn]

 from Vern Weitzel <vern at coombs.anu.edu.au> -----

World health: A lethal dose of US politics
By Dylan C Williams

BANGKOK - When World Health Organization (WHO) director general Lee Jong-wook 
died of a cerebral 
hemorrhage last month before the start of the United Nations agency's annual 
World Health Assembly, 
the world's most prominent public-health official was arguably of a conflicted 
mind.

The WHO veteran was caught in the middle of an intensifying global debate over 
how to reconcile 
intellectual-property protection with the pressing public-health need to 
expand access to expensive 
life-saving medicines, a hot-button issue that has sharply divided WHO member 
states along 
developed- and developing-country lines.

An Asia Times Online investigation reveals that at the time of his death, Lee, 
a South Korean 
national, had closely aligned himself with the US government and by 
association US corporate
interests, often to the detriment of the WHO's most vital commitments and 
positions, including its 
current drive to promote the production and marketing of affordable generic 
antiretroviral drugs for 
millions of poor infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which 
can cause AIDS.

According to senior and middle-ranking WHO officials familiar with the 
situation, Lee blatantly bent 
to US government pressure in March when he made the controversial decision to 
recall the WHO country 
representative to Thailand, William Aldis, who had served less than 16 months 
in what traditionally 
has been a four-year or longer posting.

A wrong opinion
Aldis had made the mistake of penning a critical opinion piece in the Bangkok 
Post newspaper in 
February that argued in consonance with WHO positions that Thailand should 
carefully consider before 
surrendering its sovereign right to produce or import generic life-saving 
medicines as allowed by 
the World Trade Organization (WTO) in exchange for a bilateral free-trade 
agreement (FTA) with the 
United States, which is currently under negotiation.

The WHO official also wrote that the stricter intellectual-property protection 
measures in the 
proposed US-Thai FTA would inevitably lead to higher drug prices and thereby 
jeopardize the lives of 
"hundreds of thousands" of Thai citizens who now depend on access to locally 
produced cheap 
medicines to survive. He noted too that the Thai government's current 
production of generic 
treatments had allowed the country to reduce AIDS-related deaths by a whopping 
79%.

Aldis' arguments directly mirrored stated WHO positions, but significantly 
were at direct odds with 
the objectives of current US trade policy, which through the establishment of 
bilateral FTAs aims to 
bind signatory countries into extending their national intellectual-property 
legislation far beyond 
the parameters of current WTO agreed standards.

A recent US Congressional Research Service report states that the United 
States' main purpose for 
pursuing bilateral FTAs is to advance US intellectual-property protection 
rather than promoting more 
free trade. The Bipartisan Trade Promotion Authority Act of 2002, the 
applicable US legislation for 
bilateral FTAs, states explicitly that Trade-Related Intellectual Property 
Standards, or TRIPS, are 
by law non-negotiable and must reflect a standard of protection similar to 
that found in US law.

A US ambassador to the UN in Geneva paid a private visit to Lee on March 23 to 
express Washington's 
displeasure with Aldis' newspaper commentary, according to WHO officials 
familiar with the meeting. 
A follow-up letter from the US government addressed to Lee strongly impressed 
Washington's view of 
the importance of the WHO to remain "neutral and objective" and requested that 
Lee personally remind 
senior WHO officials of those commitments, according to a WHO staff member who 
reviewed the 
correspondence.

The next day, Lee informed the regional office in New Delhi of his decision to 
recall Aldis.

Perhaps strategically, Aldis' removal coincided with the height of Thailand's 
recent political 
crisis, and failed to generate any local media attention at the time. 
Internally, Lee had 
characterized Aldis' transfer to a research position of considerable less 
authority in New Delhi as 
a promotion.

Suwit Wibulpolprasert, senior adviser to the Thai Ministry of Public Health, 
early this month sent a 
formal letter to acting WHO director general Anders Nordstrom, requesting an 
official explanation 
for Aldis' abrupt removal.

A large number of WHO staff members are employed on renewable 11-month 
contracts, meaning that their 
standing inside the organization is on perpetually shaky ground and hence 
curbs their ability to 
voice critical opinions.

(cut here)

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