Action Alert on UN High-Level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases
The UNGA Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) High-Level Meeting will take place from 19-20 September, 2011 in New York. However, the language of the draft Political Declaration proposed for approval by the HLM is currently set to undermine access to medicines for millions of people, particularly for those living in developing countries where treatments are priced out of the reach of the majority of patients. Wide-ranging and explicit attacks on public health efforts to ensure effective prevention and treatment of NCDs are being led by the United States and the European Union. Developing countries, through the G77 position, have fought back hard on these threats which led the negotiations to stall. But the negotiations are set to resume on September 1, 2011 (under 72 hours from now) and end a day later on September 2, 2011. It is unclear whether the G77 will be able to resist the US and EU campaign and we need to act now to stop this assault on the human right to health.
Principal threats:
TRIPS and Doha excluded: The United States has
taken a position
against including any references to TRIPS
flexibilities or the Doha
Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public
Health in the draft
political statement. The US and EU are
operating in a pre-Doha mindset
and seeking to weaken the ground established by
the Doha Declaration,
the WHO Revised Drug Strategy, the WHO
Medicines Strategy, the WHO
Global Strategy and Plan of Action on public
health, innovation and
intellectual property, the 2011 Human Rights
Council resolution on the
Right to Health, the 2010 UN Resolution on
Global Health and Foreign
Policy, and even the 2010 EU Council
Conclusions on Global Health. In
placing intellectual property and trade policy
above human rights, the
US and EU are dangerously interfering with the
ability of States to
comply with their obligations to respect,
protect and fulfill the
right to health and ensure access to medicines
for all. With respect
to access to medicines, we also note similar
concerns raised by civil
society arising in relation to attempts to
weaken language affecting
PLHIV.
Conflicts of interest and weakened role of government: Trade, lobby and industry groups are taking control of the agenda of the NCD HLM. A well-organised lobbying presence by industry has resulted in the limiting or blocking of proposals by developed countries to implement fiscal, policy other measures to regulate the private sector. There have also been alarming efforts to weaken the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control by removing any references to tobacco taxation. This flies in the face of Member States’ obligations to protect and promote the right to health.
Lack of targets or commitment to follow up: There is an absence of any key targets or indicators, including the goal to reduce preventable deaths from NCDs by 25% by 2025 (as recommended by the WHO), with the EU presenting the strongest resistance. Further, there is not even agreement on assigning WHO the role, with the full participation of Member States, to develop a monitoring framework for NCDs including a set of indicators by 2012. There are also no clear commitments to a comprehensive follow-up of the progress made on NCD prevention and control such as a follow-up UN Summit on NCDs in 2014.
The battles we are facing today at the UN HLM are battles which have been faced by HIV/AIDS and TB treatment activists in the past and won. To be sure, these issues threaten to undermine the hard fought progress we have made on HIV/AIDS and TB treatment. Member states of the UN cannot be allowed to roll back those long-fought and hard-won victories, victories for which millions of patients would never see. We need to make sure we win the battle again, not only for people living with NCDs, increasing numbers of whom are also HIV/AIDS patients, but for all people living in developing countries who cannot access medicines to alleviate or cure their illnesses.
This is the time to come together to take the lessons and victories learnt from the access to medicines movement’s work around HIV/AIDS and apply them to the emerging NCD crisis, a crisis which is rapidly being recognised as a major health crisis of the poor and dispossessed. Together we can make sure the victories to date are protected and applied to all diseases, and that we can build on them further to ensure access to medicines for all.
Public health organizations are drafting a petition to the UN Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. This petition is directed against the positions taken by the United States and the EU in the negotiations of the UN HLM Political Declaration that will threaten and violate the right to health of millions of people.
Can you support the petition? And mobilize like-minded organizations to do the same?
To sign your organization’s name to the petition or for further information, contact:
K Gopakumar, Third World Network
Email: kmgkumar@gmail.com
Tel: +91 9899976104
Sandeep Kishore, Young Professionals Chronic
Disease Network
Email: sunny.kishore@gmail.com
Tel: +1 917 733 1973
Rachel Kiddell-Monroe, Universities Allied
for Essential Medicines
Email: rachel.k.monroe@essentialmedicine.org
Tel: +1 514 226 7003
Krista Cox, Knowledge Ecology
International
Email: krista.cox@keionline.org
Tel: +1 202 332 2670