Pharmabiz
 

‘Partnership for Safe Medicines’ a farce: Health interest groups

Ramesh Shankar, Mumbai, MumbaiMonday, December 13, 2010, 08:00 Hrs  [IST]

A section of health interest groups in the country has cautioned the consumer organisations and patient groups in India about the malafide intentions of the newly formed ‘Partnership for Safe Medicines’ and has urged them to distance themselves from it as the new organization is neither about safety nor about medicines.

It is predominantly about the protection of corporate monopolistic rights. “Therefore, we request all the public interest groups especially consumer organisations and patient groups to distance itself from ‘Partnership for Safe Medicines’. Engaging with such coalitions can divert the much needed attention from other compelling issues such as rational use of medicines, high drug prices and patenting of essential medicines. Therefore it is grossly unsafe to partner with Partnership for Safe Medicines”, said a spokesman for the Centre for Trade and Development (Centad).

This newly generated interest should be approached with a caution as this entire drama is stage-managed by the big pharma, who blatantly pursue policy level changes across the world that hinder access to affordable medicines to millions of poor people. The Partnership for Safe Medicines belongs to the band of above mentioned front organisations, the spokesman cautioned.

Exposing the intentions of the new organisation, the health groups said that it is very clear that they represent the interests of the IP owners rather than that of consumers. This pro-industry face is more visible when one looks into the composition of board of directors. Two of the five board of directors are pro-industry academicians, one belongs to Pharmaceutical Security Institute (PSI), one is the global policy head of Merck & Co and one is from PhRMA.

The Indian chapter has three partners---Cell for Consumer Education and Advocacy (Bejon Mishra- executive director), Consumer Online Foundation (Bejon Mishra--chairperson), Healthy You Foundation (Bejon Mishra-- founder trustee), and Indian Medical Association. Bejon Mishra appears to be the connecting link between all the three partners. Therefore it would not be incorrect to assume that the partnership in India has not yet grown beyond Bejon Mishra and his associate organisations, the health interest groups regretted.

The ambiguity created by the anti-counterfeiting debates in fact entrapped many consumer organisations around the world. Without understanding the intricacies of the anti-counterfeiting politics many jumped into the coalitions such as Partnership for Safe Medicines. In fact these sorts of coalitions could successfully camouflage the corporate business interests in the issue of safety of medicines. One of the problems with debates on counterfeits is that it has completely sidelined the issues of rational use of medicines, and drug pricing. In the midst of unethical business practices of pharmaceutical companies, the issue of rational use of medicines should be brought back to mainstream, the health groups said.

Indian drug industry, which is projected to be the Pharmacy of the world, is under the threat of bigpharma. Of late, there have been many deliberate attempts to wipe out Indian generic companies. The increasing number of MNC take-over of Indian generic companies and proliferation of TRIPS-plus policy instruments attest to this fact. The campaigns run by Partnership for Safe Medicines also add more fuels to these attacks, the health interest groups cautioned.

 
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