European Parliament debates TRIPs and public health

Today (after 3pm) the European Parliament is debating the TRIPs Agreement and its impact on access to medicines. It seems that the EP is putting together a series of questions to the European Council and Commission.

Last week’s Financial Times reported that a group of MEPs, led by Italian Liberal Gianluca Susta, think that
“The only long-term solution is to give these countries . . . the ability to provide for the health needs of their population. That means helping them build up their own production and research facilities.”

The MEPs want to see funding from the EU to set up these facilities, but the Commission does not agree. If the funding is not forthcoming, the MEPs have threatened to block the conversion of the 2003 temporary compulsory licensing waiver under the TRIPs Agreement into a permanent measure.

The IPKat can see how the MEPs’ measures would benefit less developed countries. However, he can equally well see why Europe-based pharmaceutical companies will be less than chuffed by an institution that is backed by the governments of the countries in which they are based subsidising their competitors.
European Parliament debates TRIPs and public health European Parliament debates TRIPs and public health Reviewed by Anonymous on Wednesday, July 11, 2007 Rating: 5

No comments:

All comments must be moderated by a member of the IPKat team before they appear on the blog. Comments will not be allowed if the contravene the IPKat policy that readers' comments should not be obscene or defamatory; they should not consist of ad hominem attacks on members of the blog team or other comment-posters and they should make a constructive contribution to the discussion of the post on which they purport to comment.

It is also the IPKat policy that comments should not be made completely anonymously, and users should use a consistent name or pseudonym (which should not itself be defamatory or obscene, or that of another real person), either in the "identity" field, or at the beginning of the comment. Current practice is to, however, allow a limited number of comments that contravene this policy, provided that the comment has a high degree of relevance and the comment chain does not become too difficult to follow.

Learn more here: http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/p/want-to-complain.html

Powered by Blogger.