Parliament best bet for access to medicine

22.03.2007 / 00:00 CET

In India, Novartis is mounting a judicial challenge, seeking to overturn provisions in India's patent law that limit the granting of patents to real innovations only. With India's capacity to produce and export generics medicines for the developing world already severely restricted by World Trade Organization rules, Novartis's attack is effectively one more turn of the screw.
More than 350,000 people have now joined Médecins Sans Frontières in calling for Novartis to drop the case. Members of the European Parliament from four different parties have publicly expressed their support to the Indian government. They urged the European Commission to take a similar position. The response has been appallingly timid.
At the same time, the Thai government is coming under fire for enacting policies that promise to bring the price of AIDS drugs and other medicines down to within reach of its population. These policies are fully in line with international trade laws and promoted by the Commission. But in a starkly different attitude, the Commission's Direct-orate General for Trade is now questioning the scope of their application.
Defending public health solely through empty declarations of intent is nothing less than a betrayal of the spirit of Doha. When it comes to being a force for global public health, it seems, it is to the Parliament that our hopes must turn.

Ellen 't Hoen
Médecins Sans Frontières
Brussels

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