The Americas preparing for a Global Strategy on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property
I attended the consultations of the Americas for the Intergovernmental Working Group on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property on Monday and Tuesday (October 22-23, 2007) in Ottawa. These consultations were meant to prepare for the negotiations of a Global Strategy on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property prepared by the World Health Organization Secretariat in Geneva on how to ensure that developing country health needs are met through innovation systems. The Ottawa meeting started on a poor footing however. A group of 14 countries (4 other countries later joined in) led by Brazil and Bolivia submitted an alternative Global Strategy (called the Rio Draft). This version is not only more detailed but introduces general principles that puts health above commercial interests. While sounding good, the Rio Draft assumes that IP is necessarily opposed to open-science, access and health care. It treats IP as an end in itself rather than as a way of ensuring that those who need medications get it. This is disturbing since instead of thinking through how IP can be used in the service of innovation for the poor, IP is seen as the exception to be kept at bay. Another disturbing aspect of both the Secretariat’s and the Rio Draft is that very little in them actually would increase innovation and access for the poor. They spend a lot of time talking about speculative proposals (a prize system, open science) which will take many years to even figure out whether they are workable rather than on ensuring that scientists in developing countries have the ability to carry out their research. Nothing is said in either document about Internet access, money to support attendance at international conferences, funding for developing country start-ups or other practical steps that would actually enable developing countries to address their health needs. Certainly IP must be dealt with: as currently managed it does prevent access. But the way to deal with it is to offer concrete proposals about how to better manage it and not relegate it to the side in favour of highly speculative (and perhaps ultimately unworkable) mechanisms.
R. Gold
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