PHM-Exch> Alarmed Global AIDS activists Join the Fight to Ensure a Successful UN Non-Communicable Disease Summit

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Ravi Narayan <chcravi at gmail.com>
From: Gregg Gonsalves <gregg.gonsalves at gmail.com>

Alarmed Global AIDS activists Join the Fight to Ensure a Successful UN
Non-Communicable Disease Summit

Civil society groups unite to tackle trade, fight for targets and to
eliminate industry influence; file complaint with the UN Special
Rapporteur on the Right to Health

September 1, 2011 -- Negotiations resume on the draft political
declaration for the first United Nations General Assembly
Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) High-Level Meeting (HLM) in New York
City today.

Alarmed by explicit efforts led by developed countries to weaken the
Declaration’s language in a way that will undermine effective
prevention and treatment of NCDs, over 70 public health NGOs and
groups representing hundreds, if not thousands, of people living with
HIV/AIDS from across the globe are now sounding the alarm.

Their concern is that a watered down political declaration will roll
back the advances made realising access to medicines for all and will
threaten the right to health of millions of people, especially those
living in developing countries.

“The richer, more powerful countries are putting global health at risk
for trade interests and economic gain,” says Sandeep Kishore of the
Young Professionals Chronic Disease Network. “The draft has been
crippled - currently devoid of any prevention or treatment targets,
lacking bold commitments to action and packed with proposals aimed at
diluting governments' obligations to keep private interests driving
NCDs, including tobacco firms, in check. These actions constitute
human rights violations and will cost lives.”

Taking action

The global coalition is now petitioning the UN Special Rapporteur on
the Right to Health to take urgent action against countries acting
contrary to human rights in the negotiations. The complaint targets a
bloc of developed countries, including the US, Canada, European Union
and Japan, that have been thwarting key proposals which would give the
declaration on NCDs “teeth” through time-bound targets and robust
States’ commitments to undertake interventions proven to be effective.
These actions together threaten the ability of States to comply with
their obligations to respect, protect and fulfill the right to health
and ensure access to medicines for all.

Access to medicines advocates who are turning their attention to NCDs
have been quick to see the parallels with battles for access to
HIV/AIDS and TB medications.

“It is time to take the lessons and victories from the access to
medicines movement’s HIV/AIDS advocacy and apply them to the emerging
NCD crisis, a crisis which is rapidly being recognised as the major
health crisis of the poor and dispossessed,” says Rachel
Kiddell-Monroe, President of Universities Allied for Essential
Medicines and former aid worker with Médecins Sans Frontières. “I
watched helplessly as patients died of AIDS in Rwanda in 1994 because
the medicines were too expensive. Now those AIDS patients would have a
chance of receiving treatment. But the same cannot be said if they had
diabetes or cancer.”

AIDS activists the world over agree

“People with HIV need access to antiretroviral therapy, but we all are
also susceptible to non-communicable diseases, which also need
treatment. Although I have HIV, I am on antiretroviral therapy and
thus am more likely now to die of non-communicable diseases like
cancer, heart disease or stroke than AIDS,” says Gregg Gonsalves of
the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition. “Whether we are
advocating for access to HIV medicines or to NCD medicines, this is a
battle for medicines for all.”

The union of the NCD and HIV civil society movements represents a
watershed moment in global health and strengthens global calls to
action for a strong UN summit on NCDs. “People died during long and
hard-won battles for access to HIV/AIDS medicines; we will not stand
by and allow this to happen again for people suffering from cancer,
diabetes and heart disease,” says Shiba Phurailatpam, Director of the
Asia-Pacific Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS.

While the UN declaration on HIV/AIDS that emerged in June featured
clear commitments to targets and also endorsed the use of important
flexibilities guaranteed by the WTO TRIPS Agreement to ensure trade
did not trump patient rights, the United States, in particular, has
blocked all attempts for similar language in the NCD declaration. “The
US government and our courts have used compulsory licenses on patents
that diagnose and treat cancer, to force the licensing of patents on
stem cell lines, and to promote research on a wide range of
non-communicable diseases and conditions.  Developing countries, which
have almost no access to many new cancer drugs, want language in the
Declaration to establish the legitimacy of using compulsory licenses,
to make access to cancer drugs more equal. We are deeply disappointed
in the Obama Administration, for working so closely with the drug
companies to weaken the declaration, ” says Krista Cox from Knowledge
Ecology International.

Successful outcomes are possible

The coalition is seeking accountability from all Member States
involved in negotiating the NCD Political Declaration this week. “It
is important that the Declaration call upon Member States to avoid
conflicts of interest in their efforts of prevention and control of
NCDs” says Gopakumar of the Third World Network. Speaking as one
voice, communities and public health organizations around the world
are petitioning to be heard, for their key concerns taken seriously
and addressed. Rohit Malpani, Senior Advisor at Oxfam affirms: “It
would be a profound disappointment for a Declaration that is intended
to promote public health to do less to promote access to medicines
than existing global trade agreements. Oxfam urgently calls upon world
leaders to ensure that strong and robust commitments to ensure access
to affordable medicines is not left out of the final Declaration.”
World leaders must act immediately and responsibly to deliver key
changes and ensure actionable, measurable outcomes in the political
declaration.
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