Your Excellency,
On behalf of civil society movements and NGOs working on health and human rights, we would like to extend our sincere congratulations to you on your appointment as Minister of Public Health of Thailand.
Your Excellency, as you may realize, the fact that many Thai people still do not have access to a number of life saving essential medicines is one of our major concerns. Indeed, the right to the highest attainable standard of health is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the current Constitution of Thailand, and access to essential medicines plays a critical role in fulfilling this right. However, the privatization of medicine in the form of patent protection is a major obstacle that currently blocks the path to putting in place a plan that can rapidly expand access to life saving treatments. While patents reward years of research and development, they can at the same time increase the public burden by maintaining unacceptably high prices for some essential medicines.
May we take this opportunity to ask Your Excellency for the position of the Ministry of Public Health and the new government on the policies to be implemented to ensure an equitable increase in access to essential medicines for the people of Thailand. In particular we would appreciate clarification of the present government's stance on Compulsory Licensing, which was used legally by the previous government to significantly increase access to anti-retroviral treatment for people living with HIV.
We consider Compulsory Licensing as an important and effective legislative measure to ensure improve access to treatment for a number of chronic and life threatening diseases. It has been proven that the use of Compulsory Licensing helps to create a balance by limiting exclusive patent rights and upholding the government’s constitutional responsibility to promote equality and protect public health.
It is also important to note that the National Health Security Office's use of low cost generic antiretroviral medicines imported under Compulsory License has lead to significant budgetary savings. These savings have allowed the National Health Security Office to provide antiretroviral medicines with fewer side effects and an improved monitoring system to large numbers of HIV/AIDS patients. Moreover these savings have also allow the National Health Security Office to extend its benefit packages to those with other chronic disease such as renal failure.
Your Excellency, to address the challenge of improving access to essential medicines we first need ‘commitment’ from the government. We are certainly counting on this government to build this commitment as well as to develop new strategies. While realizing and understanding that we need to think of other systematic approaches as part of a long term strategy to increase equitability of access to medicines, compulsory licensing should remain as part of this strategy.
At this moment many patients with cancer are awaiting the importation of affordable generic versions of the three expensive patented anticancer medicines for which the previous government recently issued compulsory licenses. We would like to call on Your Excellency to ensure these people and other like them no longer suffer the catastrophic consequences of the excessively high price of some life saving patent protected medicines.
Your Excellency, we are a cooperative network with sincere attitudes, and are willing to share any knowledge and experience with the Ministry of Public Health in order to reach our ultimate goal of an increased and equitable access to medicines.
Please accept, Your Excellency, the assurances of our highest consideration.
1. Dr. Jakkrit Kuanpoth
Senior Lecturer
Faculty of Law
University of Wollongong
AUSTRALIA
2. Professor Brook K. Baker
Northeastern U. School of Law
Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy
400 Huntington Ave.
Boston, MA 02115
3. Health GAP (Global Access Project),
USA
4. Galle KRIKORIAN,
Interdisciplinary Research Institute on Social Issues (IRIS),
France
5. Prof (Dr) Purvish M Parikh
Convener, Indian Co-operative Oncology Network
Room 6, Tata Memorial Hospital
Parel, Mumbai 400012
India
6. Essential Action, Washington, DC, USA.
Contact: Robert Weissman, director, rob@essential.org
7. Kevin Outterson
Associate Professor of Law
Director, Health Law Program
Boston University School of Law
8. Ellen R. Shaffer, PhD MPH
Joe Brenner, MA, Co-Directors
CPATH (Center for Policy Analysis on Trade and Health)
USA
9. Victor W. Sidel, MD
Distinguished University Professor of Social Medicine
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Bronx, NY, USA
vsidel@igc.org
10. David Legge, Melbourne, Australia
Associate Professor in Public Health, La Trobe University, Melbourne
Member, Public Health Association of Australia
Member, People’s Health Movement, Australia
11. Joana Ramos, MSW
Cancer Resources & Advocacy
Seattle WA USA
http://ramoslink.info/
12. Azra Talat Sayeed
Organization: Roots for Equity
Pakistan
13. Mardge Cohen MD
Medical Director, Women's Equity in Access to Care and Treatment
Cook County/Stroger Hospital
WE-ACTx
14. Bernard J Cordes, M.D., M.P.H.
Consultant, Preventive Medicine and Public Health
Amphur Mueang
Jangwat Chiang Mai
15. Denise Antunes do Nascimento
Organization: Brazilian Association of Collective Oral Health - People's Health Movement
Porto Alegre City, BRazil
16. Deborah Gleeson,
People's Health Movement, Australia
17. Romeo F. Quijano, M.D.
Professor, Department of Pharmacology
College of Medicine, University of the Philippines Manila
547 P. Gil St., Manila, Philippines
18. Dr AZIZ RHALI
coordinateur du Reseau Marocain Pour le Droit a la Sante
aziz_rhali@yahoo.fr
19. Martin Khor, Director
Third World Network
20. Mohammed Idris, President,
Consumers Association of Penang
Malaysia
21. J. Warren Salmon, Ph.D., Professor
Pharmacy Administration
College of Pharmacy;
Health Policy & Administration
School of Public Health;
Public Policy Analysis
College of Urban Planning &
Public Affairs
University of Illinois at Chicago
22. American Medical Student Association (AMSA)
AMSA represents over 60,000 physicians-in-training in the US and also internationally
23. Alex P. Margery - Ambassador of Hope NAP+.
ChairPerson Tanzania National Network of People with HIV/AIDS (TANEPHA).
P.o.Box 79937 Dar es Salaam,Tanzania
Email: tanephatza@gmail.com
24. Beth Burrows
President/Director
Edmonds Institute
20319-92nd Avenue West
Edmonds, Washington 98020
USA
email: beb@igc.org
website: <http://www.edmonds-institute.org>
25. Ronald A. Sherman, Ph.D.
Healthgap
760 Riverside Drive 3G
New York, New York 10031
26. M. Ruth Elliott
Grandmothers of Alberta for a New Generation (GANG)
Edmonton, Alberta
Canada
27. Prasanna Saligram
AID Bangalore / People's Health Movement
#15 & 16, 7th 'B' Cross,
12th Main, Garden Villas,
Marappa Gardens
Nagarbhavi
Bangalore - 560072
28. Shula Koenig
PDHRE
People's Movement for Human Rights Learning
526 West 111th St. Suite 4E,
New York, NY 10025, USA
E mail : pdhre@igc.org
Award winning Website: http://www.pdhre.org
29. Ira Glazer
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (Student)
30. Shah I Mobin Jinnah
Executive Director
Community Development Association (CDA)
Upa-Shahar, Dinajpur
Bangladesh.
Chairperson, People Health Movement (PHM), Bangladesh.
E-mail: ce@cdapo.org
31. Positive Malaysian Treatment Access & Advocacy Group (MTAAG+),
Malaysia.
32. Oxfam International
33. Medecins San Frontieres
34. David Biles
Ellen Scott
Chetna Kohli
Rafi Rogans-Watson
Julia Fozard
Will Barker
Sophia De Saram
Jonathan Currie
Davina Kaur Patel
Natalie Gulliver
members of Medsin (www.Medsin.org),
a network of students in the UK with an interest in global health and advocacy.
35. Native Health Initiative (Chapel Hill, NC)
36. PharmFree Campaign of the American Medical Student Association (Reston, VA)
37. Dr Hani Serag
Global Secretariat Coordinator,
People's Health Movement (PHM)
Email: secretariat@phmovement.org
Web: www.phmovement.org
38. People's Health Movement - US (PHM-US)
39. Stop HIV/AIDS in India Initiative (SHAII)
40. K.Sukumaran, Human Rights Advocate, Tamilnadu, India
41. Allan Clear
Executive Director
Harm Reduction Coalition
USA
42. Nguyen Duy Bao, MD., PhD.
Vice Director
National Institute of Occupational and Environmental Health
Postal Address: 1B , Yecxanh, Hanoi, Vietnam
43. Kanna Hayashi
Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
44. Michael Harker Atlee Melillo
co-chair of the LGBT Allies group
45. Donalda Reid and Dan Sheehan
Canadian citizens,
46. Hisashi Igarashi
director, the q-five academic skills center
the sendai elementary english teaching institute
47. Alexander Curtis
Saira Alimohamed
American Medical Student Association
48. Roopa Dhatt, MS II
Temple University School of Medicine
49. Khalil Elouardighi - Act Up-Paris
50. John Kim MA
Boston University School of Medicine
51. Brittany M. Ashlock (MS-2)
Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine
University of Miami
52. Andrea Fisher
MSIV
Indiana University School of Medicine
Universities Allied for Essential Medicines
53. Kate Brizzi
Universities Allied for Essential Medicines
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
54. Jing Luo, UIC College of Medicine, AMSA
55. Julien Reinhard, Berne Declaration (Switzerland)
52, r. de Gen่ve, CH-1004 Lausanne, Switzerland
56. Professor Johnson G. Jato
Bioresources Development and
Conservation Programme-Cameroon (BDCP-C),BP
2626,Messa,Yaounde-Cameroon
57. Hanni Stoklosa, President, IFMSA-USA
(International Federation of Medical Students' Associations-USA)
58. saeed
General Secretary
Pakistan fisherfolk forum
59. Alice M. Miller, JD
*Visiting Professor UC Berkeley School of Law
Senior Fellow, Henderson Center for Social Justice
Berkeley, CA 94720 USA
60. Takashi Sawada
Minatomachi Medical Center
7-6 Kinkocho, Kanagawaku, Yokohama
61. Delgermaa Ch
Human rights advocacy program coordinator of CHRD, Mongolia
62. Alla F Sverdlik
Second year medical Student
Saint George's University School of Medicine
63. CONECTAS HUMAN RIGHTS
Sao Paulo, Brazil
www.conectas.org
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