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07 / 06 / 2004
Germán Velásquez: Patents might be blocking development instead of strengthening it
Coordinator of the Drug Action Program and Essential Drugs and Medicines Policy, of the World Health Organization warned that in Europe medicine prices are also rising faster than the economy at large and this will be a problem in the future.
Tore Godal, secretary of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization for de UNICEF pointed out that immunization is an investment.
Richard M Scheffler, professor of health economics and public policy at the University of Berkeley said that the pharmaceutical industry is growing faster than other industries.
Germán Velásquez, coordinator of the Drug Action Program and Essential Drugs and Medicines Policy, of the World Health Organization declared in his speech today at the Dialogue “Health and Development: Challenges for the 21st Century” that pharmaceutical patents might be blocking development instead of strengthening it, since there is a monopoly that means high prices.”
He referred to the fact that in the pharmaceutical market, “instead of rules negotiated by everyone in everyone’s interest, at the WTO decisions are made behind closed doors, decisions that protect special interests, something Kofi Annan has said.” In regards to the healthcare situation in Afirca, he pointed out that if denying someone medical care is punishable with jail time, right now a crime is being committed throughout the entire continent and there are millions of victims.”
Later he stressed that 99% of people who have access to the retroviruses live in developed countries, while 75% of the world’s population lives in the countries where only 8% of the pharmaceutics are sold.”
Tore Godal, secretary of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization insisted that immunization is national inversion and the beginning of a cycle in which health, the economy and education improve.”
Richard M Scheffler, professor of health economics and public policy at the University of Berkeley, in the United States reported that in 2002 world pharmaceutical sales reached 406 billion, 41% of them in the United States, 25% of them in Europe and 11% in Japan”. Africa only had 1% of the sales he stated.
He said that "the industry is doing very well, it is growing dramatically, at 2 to 5 times the rest of the world’s industires.”
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