Non Communicable Disease (NCD) negotiations

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U.S. Congress

  • Sep 15, 2011, Rep. Waxman Calls for Leadership from Secretary Sebelius at UN Meeting on Access to Affordable Medicine

    . . . the United States should support the inclusion of references to the Doha Declaration[3] and the TRIPS flexibilities confirmed therein. The Doha Declaration was adopted by the World Trade Organization in 2001 to make clear that international intellectual property rules “can and should be interpreted and implemented in a manner supportive of WTO Members’ rights to protect public health and, in particular, to promote access to medicines for all.”

    Such references are consistent with the World Health Organization’s Global Strategy and Plan of Action on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property, which discusses NCDs and states that flexibilities recognized by the Doha Declaration “that would permit improved access [to health products] need to be considered for action by national authorities in light of the circumstances in their countries.”

    Failure by the United States to support mention of the Doha Declaration would undermine a decade of progress in safeguarding the right of developing countries to take action in urgent circumstances to lower drug costs and scale up treatments of communicable and non-communicable diseases.

Related Research

  • Breast and cervical cancer in 187 countries between 1980 and 2010: a systematic analysis, http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(11)61351-2/fulltext

    The authors also put out a press release. Here are some highlights:

    • “Women in high-income countries like the United States and the United Kingdom are benefiting from early cancer screenings, drug therapies, and vaccines,” said Dr. Rafael Lozano, Professor of Global Health at IHME and one of the paper’s co-authors. “We are seeing the burden of breast and cervical cancer shifting to low-income countries in Africa and Asia. This is one of the early signs of the emerging threat of noncommunicable diseases in these countries. Everyone has been talking about that threat. Now the trend is clear.”
    • In the past, complications from pregnancy and childbirth were among the leading causes of death in women under age 50. Based on current trends, breast and cervical cancer are likely to soon approach maternal causes of death in developing countries. In the Middle East and North Africa, for example, nearly 40% of all breast cancer deaths are in women of reproductive age, compared to 10% in much of Europe. In countries such as Bangladesh, the fraction is higher than 50%.
    • In countries such as the US, 1 in 32 women risked dying from breast cancer in 1980, and that risk decreased to 1 in 47 by 2010. In countries such as Rwanda, the opposite happened: 1 in 97 women risked dying from breast cancer in 1980, and now 1 in 60 women are at risk.