[Commons-Law] Amir Attaran on India�s Deadly Lies

[Prasanna Saligram]

Hi All, 
 
Can somebody from ALF send a rejoinder to this confused, hallucinated article written by the self styled improvers of Public Health through Globalisation? They seem to have jumbled up all the issues under the sky and then talking in Oxymorons. Somebody needs to tell them that it is precisely because of the forces of Globalisation and privatisation that the Public Institutions are getting undermined by Government with misplaced priorities. 
 
They also need to be told that what the Global Fund, USAID and such other organisations offer are the agendas of the pharmaceutical companies promoting unwanted medications in the name of Public-Private Partnership ( eg. is GAVi and Lymphatic filariasis) and hence maybe Indian Government would be better off not aproaching ( or has it always been the other way with these coming with their neo liberal agendas to the Indian Government? ) these organisations which also tie their aid to the other religious fundamentalist doctrines of the Bush Administration
 
Ram, 
 
Do you have the email addresses of these two? 
 
Thanks
Prasanna

Ram <prabhuram at gmail.com> wrote:
India's Deadly Lies 

By Amir Attaran and Roger Bate 

source: Tech Central Station 

The World Trade Organization has long faced angry accusations that its
patent rules deny patients in poor countries life-saving medicines by
making them too expensive. But starting three years ago, two academic
studies -- one in the Journal of the American Medical Association and
the other in Health Affairs -- expressed doubts at the magnitude of
the problem. Both argued that most of the medicines that WHO terms
"essential" in developing countries are no longer patented -- fully
98% of them are off patent. As a result, efforts to assail and reform
patent law would only affect health on the margins. Far more alarming,
from a public health perspective, was the stingy government financing
earmarked for population health (worldwide, no more than $200 million
for malaria in 2003; a bit more for AIDS, less for tuberculosis), and
the careless expenditure of foreign aid money on medically useless
interventions, or on certain developing countries with a long record
of treating their poor and sick citizens with contempt. The evidence,
collated by one of us (Attaran), proved as much, and had to be
reckoned with.

Despite the overwhelming evidence that patents aren't an obstacle to
essential medicines, India led a phalanx of developing countries and
antiglobalization NGOs intent on doing away with the WTO's patent
rules for medicines. They pushed so aggressively that at the WTO
summit in Cancun in 2003, their interventions nearly scuppered the
Doha Round of trade discussions and the future of the entire WTO. Only
after a series of face-saving but ineffective compromises did India
relent, and four days shy of a January 2005 deadline, it introduced
pharmaceutical patenting.

But while India has been vacillating over patents, its health systems
are crumbling, making it patently obvious that its government cares
not a jot for its people. A prime example of its lack of attention to
healthcare is that by some estimates it may have more HIV positive
people (over 5 million) than any other nation, including South Africa.

But most amazing is this: the same Indian government that for years
held the WTO to ransom never itself believed that medicine patents
were a problem. Speaking at a medical conference in Bangalore two
weeks ago, Indian Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss confessed that
"there is no need for any apprehension" over patents driving up the
price of essential medicines in India, since 90 percent of them are
not patented.

The health minister's rounding errors aside, this is basically the
right answer, and Mr. Ramadoss is correctly, if belatedly, concluding
that India will be only slightly affected by medicine patents.

But where was India's acknowledgement of that fact as recently as
2004, when it was leading the anti-patent voices at the WTO? At that
time, India justified its tergiversation by insisting that it was
concerned for its citizens' health. How very untrue. At the same
conference in Bangalore, Indian Finance Minister Palaniappan
Chidambaram explained why his fellow citizens are among the most
diseased in the world. Calling his own government's efforts
"inadequate for [the] health sector", he unveiled figures showing that
India spends 4.5% of its GDP on health, of which only 0.9% is public
expenditure. No government in South Asia spends less, making New Delhi
dead last (tragic pun intended) in providing for its citizens' health.
What's more, India stalled forward progress on trade liberalization at
a time when other poor countries desperately required the benefits it
would bring. India sold out Africa, one could say.

Far from being actuated by health concerns, in hindsight India's
cynical diplomacy seems motivated by a desire that disputes over
patents not interfere with India's now burgeoning pharmaceutical
export trade ($460 million to the USA last year).

Meanwhile, seen from a slowly-propelled bicycle, the health of poor
Indian villagers is shockingly worse than in much of Africa. Few
medicines, whether patented or not, are available in public hospitals,
principally because the government does not care to provide them. We
are haunted by the sight of a man, crossing the road, dragging behind
him a leg made lame and elephantine by lymphatic filariasis -- a
disease for which Western pharmaceutical firms offer the medicines not
just cheaply, but for free, if only the elites and Brahmins
officiating in New Delhi cared to distribute them.

The international community should not forgive India's perfidy
lightly. The next time Indians arrive at the WTO with a pressing
demand, let it chill on the agenda. And the next time India seeks
foreign aid for AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, et cetera, donors such as
USAID and the Global Fund should absolutely refuse. Any country having
spent billions of dollars to acquire nuclear weapons, or on follies
such as a lunar exploration probe (coming in 2008!) clearly has
significant sums to spend on public health; frankly, India neglects
its citizens' health out of choice rather than fiscal stringency.

This advice may sound harsh, but any government having India's
aspirations must be taught that both globalization and human health
are precious -- but desperately fragile -- things. To mock them as
India has done is to destabilize the edifice upon which the welfare of
billions of the world's least privileged people lies. Having knowingly
deceived, India now belongs at the back of the queue for international
respect and cooperation, for there are other poor countries far more
deserving.

Amir Attaran is associate professor of both law and international
population health at the University of Ottawa, associate fellow of the
Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, and author of
Delivering Essential Medicines: The Way Forward (Chatham House, 2004).
Roger Bate is a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute.
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Prasanna 
AID Bangalore / People's Health Movement
Tel: + 91 80 23353459 (R) and + 91 98455 18382(M) 
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