PHM-Exch> Remembering Dr.Olle Hansson Day ,May 23rd

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: fazal anwar <anwar.fazal at yahoo.com>



"The Life of the Dead is placed in the memory of the living."
(Anon)

Dr Olle Hansson was an icon of the activist medical profession and wrote a
classic in medical investigative exposure .The book was called "INSIDE CIBA
GEIGY" and published in Penang,Malaysia in 1989. It is an amazing piece and
we like to share the foreword writteh by Anwar Fazal, former  President of
International Organisation of Consumers Union(IOCU),co-founder of Health
Action International(HAI) and the instigator for the idea of a People
Health Assembly.

"Olle was a very special inspiration to us. His courage, his
competence, his commitment were rare in a profession that is more
often too comfortable or too implicated to speak out against a
powerful industry.
His passing on 23 May 1985 was mourned not by words but by a series of
actions that will continue to inspire those working to see a more
responsible pharmaceutical industry worldwide.
23 May has been designated as Olle Hansson Day
and is celebrated as a day of action in India and several other countries. An
 Ole Hansson Award
is made each year to a Third World person whose action for rational
drug policies demonstrate the fine qualities of Olle, whose words,
“Now is the time for Action” will be a rallying call for all times.
This book will not only remind us of a very special person but, we
hope, serve a very special second function - that it touch the
conscience of those in power in the pharmaceutical industry and remind
them that bad drugs and bad business will not pay, ever.
We will certainly not let them forget that. "


What this book is about is stated below by the four editors

This book is in three parts. The first part is the story of a drug,
clioquinol, which ruined many more lives than thalidomide did, but
this disaster is much less widely known and its lessons have not yet
been learned.
The story spans over 20 years, from the early 1960s until now, and is
told by Dr. Olle Hansson who became deeply involved in it early on and
did more than anyone else to bring it towards a conclusion. The main
actors are the patients who were inured, the doctors who prescribed
the drug, Ciba-Geigy the Swiss multinational pharmaceutical company
which introduced ENTERO-VIOFORM, and the lawyers and Hansson who
helped the patients obtain compensation. It is not only a thrilling
story but also raises the question&nbs
p;whether anything like it could happen again. How exceptional was it?
In the second part of the book Dr. Hansson looks at other more recent
examples of drug marketing by Ciba-Geigy and other companies to try to
answer this question. What is unique here is the wealth of information
on the discussion and decision process within Ciba-Geigy. The picture
is very less disturbing, but although Hansson himself had much less
inside knowledge of other companies, it seems likely that Ciba-Geigy’s
behaviour was no worse than that of most of its competitors. Are
pharmaceutical companies behaving
more responsibly now than in the recent past? How can we tell?
Hansson died before he could finish this book, but the last month of
his life saw a dramatic development in his long struggle with
Ciba-Geigy. The company decided that the top management should meet
him personally for discussions and perhaps negotiations. In the last
part of the bok Milton Silverman, who interviewed all the chief
participants, describes these meetings and the events that followed.
The fight to get rid of clioquinol increased public awareness of
underlying problems in many countries, and in the developing world
this encouraged consumers to campaign for more rational use of drugs.
Olle Hansson acted as a catalyst and adviser for this movement. For
example, as Dr. Mira Shiva of the Voluntary Health Association of
India notes: “The relevance of this fight for ‘right to information’,
the ‘right to socially just and rational drug use’ have increasingly
made sense to us and many others. If&
nbsp;today the drugs issue is increasingly being recognised as a
health issue, a consumer issue, it is because we are ourselves
convinced about it being so, and can therefore convince others”. Olle
Hansson facilitated this process. An important characteristic was that
“he never ignored (my) requests for expert comment, and responded very
promptly - even when he was in hospital”, as Dr. Syed Rizwanuddin
Ahmad from Health Action International Pakistan put it.
Olle Hansson’s realationship with the media were another important
element in his work. “He had a way of combining scientific with hard
fact and a campaigning zeal that is every reporter’s dream. His nose
for a story made it easy for him to pick up his way through
unnecessary detail and hit where it hurts”. (Joan Shenton, TV
journalist, London). Oliver Gillie, then medical correspondent of the
London Sunday Times adds: “As a journalist I have met many people
obsessed by a cause. Such obsession is
essential if an individual is going to make battle with governments or
large international corporations. Olle Hansson had a righteous cause,
and the stamina to see the battle through”. Barbro Joberger, of Dagens
Nyheter, Stockholm, was struck for Hansson’s respect for
journalists’professional skill: “Unlike many doctors he had no
contempt for journalists. He knew that journalists had their own code
of honour. He understood that it was in his own interest to learn as
much as possible about the way the media works, so that he&nbsp
;could achieve the best results”.
What is important now is that all of us should learn the lessons -
doctors and other health professionals, administrators of health
services, politicians and the public. The World Health Organisation
has now embarked on a major programme to encourage the rational use of
drugs in all countries, especially the poorest ones. This essential
work needs the wholehearted cooperation of the pharmaceutical
industry, which has many important contributions to make. If this book
helps to improve the ways in which we use medicines. Ol
le Hansson’s hope will have to be realised.

Dag Nilsson, Kongsvinger, Norway
Andrew Herxheimer, London, England
Eva Lachkovics, Penang, Malaysia
Mats Nilsson, Malmo, Sweden.
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