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A United Nations health specialist has suggested pharmaceutical companies and human rights workers co-operate more closely to find ways of improving the health of the world’s poor.
Paul Hunt, who is the UN’s special rapporteur on the right to health, says he wants companies and non-governmental organizations to form ‘a small group of experts from the human rights and pharmaceuticals sectors’ that would meet three or four times a year for two years and identify common ground.
Hunt says an ad hoc group should then be established, initially for three years, to report progress.
He made the suggestion at an international symposium in Switzerland to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Novartis Foundation for Sustainable Development. Hunt told EP: ‘I had some talks with interested pharmas and NGOs before the symposium, and informal discussions are taking place. But I can’t be sure how it will unfold.’
However, Daniel Vasella, chief executive of Novartis, warned the conference that civil society was in danger of overestimating the capacity of pharmaceutical companies. ‘Market failures and politics are the biggest problems relating to the failure to improve access to medicine,’ he said.
‘Stakeholders make unrealistic demands on the industry which for the most part don’t stand serious analysis. We support the idea of the right to health as an aspiration but what we can do is only complementary to the state, which holds primary responsibility for the health of citizens.’ The industry was often not given enough credit for its provision of free or low-cost drugs, Vasella added. Novartis has cured three million of leprosy by distributing free drugs through its foundation and will continue until the disease is eradicated.
Walter Fust, director-general of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, told the conference that NGOs and governments needed to acknowledge ‘cheaper drugs do not offer the ultimate solution’.
Politicians and pressure groups must recognize that adequately funded public health campaigns and measures to reduce poverty are far more effective at making, and keeping, people healthy, he added.
Paul Hunt, who is the UN’s special rapporteur on the right to health, says he wants companies and non-governmental organizations to form ‘a small group of experts from the human rights and pharmaceuticals sectors’ that would meet three or four times a year for two years and identify common ground.
Hunt says an ad hoc group should then be established, initially for three years, to report progress.
He made the suggestion at an international symposium in Switzerland to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Novartis Foundation for Sustainable Development. Hunt told EP: ‘I had some talks with interested pharmas and NGOs before the symposium, and informal discussions are taking place. But I can’t be sure how it will unfold.’
However, Daniel Vasella, chief executive of Novartis, warned the conference that civil society was in danger of overestimating the capacity of pharmaceutical companies. ‘Market failures and politics are the biggest problems relating to the failure to improve access to medicine,’ he said.
‘Stakeholders make unrealistic demands on the industry which for the most part don’t stand serious analysis. We support the idea of the right to health as an aspiration but what we can do is only complementary to the state, which holds primary responsibility for the health of citizens.’ The industry was often not given enough credit for its provision of free or low-cost drugs, Vasella added. Novartis has cured three million of leprosy by distributing free drugs through its foundation and will continue until the disease is eradicated.
Walter Fust, director-general of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, told the conference that NGOs and governments needed to acknowledge ‘cheaper drugs do not offer the ultimate solution’.
Politicians and pressure groups must recognize that adequately funded public health campaigns and measures to reduce poverty are far more effective at making, and keeping, people healthy, he added.
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