Open Letter to the WHO EB from Cecilia López Montaño, EWG member

Dear members of the Executive Board:

I am Cecilia López Montaño, senator of the Colombian Congress and member of the Expert Working Group on Research and Development Financing of the World Health Organization, in representation of the point of view of developing countries, I assume.

Shortly before the end of 2009 I participated in the last of the three meetings held at the WHO in Geneva, in which the group's final report was approved. The report will be submitted to you next week.

I am writing to request you that the report doesn’t get the approval, and also to ask WHO and the EWG to resume the job they were responsible for and complete it within strict procedures to ensure transparency.

I make this request based on two reasons.

First, I must say I feel that I was utilized to legitimize a process in which neither I nor the majority of the members of the group participated in a full manner. Not only because we received very poor information from the WHO, but because we are talking about key reports in which some subjects were selected while others were left behind without our opinions on the matter. The documents were sent to us with a minimum time for analysis and the meetings were held in a rush without the proper time for debate. The secretary of the WHO as well as the president of the group did whatever they pleased.

In the two meetings I assisted (one of them was reduced to a ‘one day meeting’) I asked on more than one occasion that we must focus in subjects related to intellectual property, understanding that it was one of the critical points that the EWG needed to discuss. To my surprise, I noticed a great interest to avoid the discussion of such issues, with mixed arguments about the true mandate of the group and others even more confusing arguments. After recognizing the impossibility to discuss such issues I decided to leave the room since I considered it was a waste of time to talk about other issues that were not the main objectives of the group.

Since the beginning of the discussions, civil society organizations, which have played a key role in these debates, pointed out the lack of transparency, the absence of terms of reference and other problems regarding the whole process of the EWG. Those concerns were ignored by the secretariat of the WHO.

Due to the collaboration of the NGOs, we could organize some debates on the subjects under study by the EWG, but, unfortunately, we did not have any support from the global office or from the regional office of the WHO.

On the other hand, I was aware, as I hope you too, of the leak of the report to interest groups even before we received it and was very disappointed with the fact that, regarding the criteria of the pharmaceutical industry, the group was under control and would behave according to its interests.

As a Colombian and also knowing the important role of Dr. Germán Velásquez (who is also a Colombian) in this process, I wanted to consult him permanently. However I noticed very surprisingly, that he was sidelined from the elaboration of the report and did not assist to the final meeting, as it happened with some other members of the EWG.

The report itself contains a contradiction to all key elements of the GSPOA questioning the suitability of the intellectual property scheme to stimulate innovation and also to propositions regarding complementary and alternative mechanisms. Knowing that the WHO has led a long process to debate the relations between intellectual property and public health, I find this turn, at least, worrying. I also find worrying the omission of any reference to the proposal of a treaty about Innovation, Intellectual Property and Public Health, which the WHO was removed from as an actor in the 62nd world assembly under unclear circumstances.

For all these reasons I insist you to not approve the mentioned report, as well as to take the measures needed so that the EWG can not be manipulated again and can function with transparency guided by the spirit of the 61.21 resolution that aims for us to reach alternative solutions so that the intellectual property scheme will not be the only incentive for R&D of medicines for the majority of the world’s population that lives in developing countries.

Sincerely,
Cecilia López Montaño
Senator

To the executive board Members.

BAHAMAS
Dr M. Dahl-Regis
Chief Medical Officer
Ministry of Health
Nassau New Providence

BANGLADESH
Professor A.F.M.R. Haque
Minister of Health and Family Welfare
Dhaka

BRAZIL
Dr P.M. Buss
President, Fundacão Oswaldo Cruz
Manguinhos
Rio De Janeiro

BRUNEI DARUSSALAM
Mr P.D.S. Osman
Minister of Health
Bandar Seri Bagwan

BURUNDI
Dr N. Birintanya
Directeur général de la Santé publique
Ministère de la Santé
Bujumbura

CANADA
Dr K. Dodds
Assistant Deputy Minister
Health Policy Branch
Health Canada
Ottawa

CHILE
Dr F. Muñoz
Attaché, Permanent Representative
Geneva

ESTONIA
Dr M. Jesse
Director, National Institute for Health Development
Tallinn

FRANCE
M. D. Houssin
Directeur général de la Santé
Ministère de la Santé et des Sports
Paris

GERMANY
Dr E. Seeba
Head, Central Directorate General
European and International Policy Issues
Bundesministerium für Gesundheit
Berlin

HUNGARY
Dr M. Kökény
President of the Health Committee of the National Assembly
Budapest

INDIA
Ms K. Sujatha Rao
Secretary, Health and Family Welfare
New Delhi

INDONESIA
Dr E.R. Sedyaningsih
Minister of Health
Jakarta

JAPAN
Dr S. Omi
Professor, Jichi Medical University
Tochigi

MALAWI
Dr S. Kabuluzi
Director of Preventive Health Services
Ministry of Health
Lilongwe

MAURITANIA
Dr C.E.M. Ould Horma
Ministre de la Santé
Nouakchott

MAURITIUS
Dr N. Gopee
Chief Medical Officer
Ministry of Health and Quality of Life
Port Louis

NEW ZEALAND
Mr T. Ryall
Minister of Health
Wellington

NIGER
Dr A. Djibo
Directeur Général de la Santé publique
Ministère de la Santé publique
Niamey

OMAN
Dr A.J. Mohamed
Advisor, Health Affairs
Ministry of Health
Muscat

PARAGUAY
Dr E. Giménez Caballero
Viceministro de Salud Pública y Bienestar Social
Asunción

PERU
Sr. C. Vallejos
Ministro de Salud
Lima

REPUBLIC OF KOREA
Professor Sohn Myongsei
Vice-President, Korean Academy of Medical Sciences
Seoul

REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA
Dr I. Ababii
Rector, Moldova Medical University
Chisinau

RUSSIAN FEDERATION
Dr V. I. Starodubov
Director, Central Research Institute of Health Management and Information Systems
Ministry of Health and Social Development
Moscow

SAMOA
Mrs G.A. Gidlow
Minister of Health
Apia

SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE
Dr J.A.N. dos Ramos
Directrice du Cabinet du Ministre de la Santé
Ministère de la Santé
Sao Tomé

SERBIA
Dr T. Milosavljevi?
Minister of Health
Belgrade

SOMALIA
To be designated

SYRIAN ARAB REPUBLIC
Dr R. Said
Minister of Health
Damascus

TUNISIA
Dr H. Abdesselem
Directeur général, Unité de la Coopération technique
Ministère de la Santé publique
Tunis

UGANDA
Dr S. Zaramba
Director-General, Health Services
Ministry of Health
Entebbe

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Dr S. Al Darmaki
Director-General, Ministry of Health
Abu Dhabi

UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND
Sir Liam Donaldson
Chief Medical Officer
Department of Health
London

Copies: Members of the EWG.