Don't end fight for key drugs

Health advocates and activist groups around the world support Thailand in enforcing compulsory licensing for cancer drugs to save lives, according to Kannikar Kijitwatchakul, campaigner for access to essential medicines at Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Belgium's Thailand Mission.

Kannikar said the Thai Network of People Living with HIV/Aids, civic groups and activists in the US would issue a petition to the Thai government and Public Health Ministry against revising the imposition of compulsory licensing for cancer drugs.

She said the petition would be submitted to Health Minister Chaiya Sasomsab this week, while other petitions will be submitted at Thai embassies overseas.

"We want to know the standpoint of the health minister, who is responsible for taking care of people across country," she said.

Civic groups and health activists worldwide support the use of compulsory licensing by former health minister Dr Mongkol na Songkhla as he followed domestic and international regulations in using the World Trade Organisation's Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) to give poor patients access to cancer drugs.

Kannikar urged the government to ignore the threats of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), which last week warned Thailand about the use of compulsory licensing and said it would ask the US Trade Representative to revise Thailand's status from "priority watch list" to "priority foreign country". This would affect the business sector, which exports more than 2,000 products to the US under the low-tariff Generalised System of Preferences scheme.

"Even though the PhRMA is the biggest lobbyist in the US, the Thai government should ignore its threat because it is not under the USA's regulations," Kannikar said.

Oxfam International and other non-governmental organisations will hold a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand in Bangkok to express concern about the impact a revision of compulsory licensing for cancer drugs would have.

Pongphon Sarnsamak

The Nation