The New Straits Times, May 20, 2001
By Professor Dzulkifli Abdul Razak
I FEEL cheated," the Minister of Health was quoted as saying (Sun, May 4) when referring to the delay in fulfilling the promises made by multinational drug firms to reduce the prices of anti-retroviral drugs for HIV/AIDS.
Sufferers of the life-threatening disease must have felt the same.
Even more so would be the feeling of those who have lost their loved ones just because the treatment is "so near yet so far". Today the whole world is mourning, in conjunction with the International AIDS Memorial Day, not only for the dead but also because of the many more anticipated death as the majority continue to be deprived of the drugs. It is time to ponder new strategies as to how access to medicines could be fully restored to those needing them. In this context, this year's theme: "One Voice, Many Faces? ... United For Life" is befitting.
One strategy is to change the policy dealing with patent injustices.
In a previous column (Poison Control, April 29) we reviewed how developing countries, especially Africa, are grappling with such a move so that HIV/AIDS therapy is more affordable. Malaysia, too, needs to come up quickly with its own strategies. According to the Malaysian AIDS Council, of the total 38,000 cases of HIV-positive identified since 1995, to date only one per cent (less than 400 patients) is receiving the antiretroviral therapy. The rest simply are not able to afford the drugs.
The Minister of Health was quoted recalling that at the World Health Assembly last year, the companies said a 30-60 per cent price reduction was imminent but he had yet to hear from them.
The firms must have got their reasons for the supposed delay. What is obvious however is that they are more concerned about saving, as much as possible, their bottom lines rather than lives. They argued that the World Trade Organisation mandates that new patented products could have a global market monopoly lasting about two decades. Few bother to mention the possibility of alternatives, such as "compulsory licensing" and "parallel importing", especially in relation to pharmaceuticals.
In other words, there are ways out for the poor and they do not have to wait for an additional five to ten years before they can buy cheaper generic equivalents. Pharmaceutical companies are too busy raking high profits from the sales of their patented products to notice that many are dying due to drug deprivation.
As such there is practically no choice other than for the Government to assert its political will.
Thus, seemingly the Malaysian situation warrants such urgent consideration.
To quote the Minister: "We are now joining many developing countries in demanding compulsory licensing and parallel importing for these drugs." One other strategy is to cite the rights to health care as a fundamental human right. One must learn from the recent turn of event where the world's only superpower was knocked out of the United Nations Human Rights Commission for the very first time.
Indeed, as observed by Joanna Weschler, the UN representative for Human Rights Watch, among the issues that caused the voting out of the superpower was its opposition to a wider distribution of AIDS drugs at an affordable price (Sun, May 5).
In more ways that one, such an opposition that deprives even one person of any form of treatment is a violation of human rights.
This is how the pharmaceutical industry should be judged when its marketing policy continues to prevent many governments and their citizens from gaining access to cheap drugs. Just as the superpower nation was told that its arrogance was no longer tolerable and warned that "might is no longer right", it is time that the pharmaceutical "superpowers" too were given the same lesson.
Like the political superpower, its pharmaceutical counterparts too must not be allowed to impose their own economic agenda to the detriment of the welfare of millions of people. No country, much less companies, should be allowed to play god. We are now seeing how in a united way and in one voice, the many faces that make up the world, can assert their collective will for a larger common good. Aptly enough, this is the very spirit embedded in the theme of the International AIDS Memorial Day 2001, that must be translated into reality so that we, as a sovereign nation, are not cheated any more — be it politically or pharmaceutically speaking.
