PHM-Exch> Why and How to Make an International Crime of Medicine Counterfeiting (2)

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Garance UPHAM <fannie.upham at gmail.com>


-Be careful!! Brazil said at the last World Health Assembly : the WHO does
not have a mandate to become a police organization!
Brazil was followed by most LMIC in rejecting the US-EU lead drive for a WHO
stand on 'counterfeiting'.
In fact 'counterfeiting' is a copying of a ..trade mark! It is a violation
of intellectual property right.. alleged by the patent owner...!
Counterfeiting is different from the manufacture of 'fake' medicines.
Today rich countries are trying to impose a new law ACTA (Anti
Counterfeiting Trade Agreement" which say the LMIC lead by Brazil will allow
the seizure of totally legal generics in a port during shipping, for
example, as was done in Rotterdam for the shipment of Indian generics to
Brazil about 4 years ago!! Read Susan Sell's excellent analysis of Acta.
Or go to IPWATCH or Third World Network ( notably the writtings of Sangeeta
Shashikant- PHM )websites to understand more.
But please be careful
There is a huge propaganda campaign in the media internationally to go
beyond WTO - because ACTA will- and impose on the world the kind of TRIPS+++
as will close down for ever generic production.
So there are lots of crocodile tears over 'counterfeit' meds killing the
poor... to superimpose the kind of laws that will indeed really kill the
poor by making all drugs unaffordable.
THE BEST and MOST EFFICIENT WAY to stop the real problem of false or
substandard dangerous drugs is to implement the RESOLUTION ON RATIONAL USE
OF MEDS!! Which means, in a nutshell, using the essential drug list with a
well regulated supplying system and - in my view- also getting rid of fees
to enter health care, a macroeconomic policy which forces the poor to buy a
less than adequate supply of drugs on the black market...which is were the
fake drugs are and which, by the way, creates another huge problem of
microbial resistance (see the declaration of the WHO on World Health Day- a
decent statement on the terrible dangers...)
How come to this day there is only one person in WHO to implement that
essential policy?
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