Pharma, govts waging "undeclared drugs war on poor;" GSK targeted for change

A campaign launched on February 12 by Oxfam, the UK-based relief agency,accuses pharmaceutical companies and the governments of wealthy western nations of "conducting an undeclared war against the world's poorest countries."

In its Cut the Cost campaign, Oxfam says that while the World Trade Organization's patent rules include safeguards to allow governments to maintain supplies of cheap drugs, these are being steadily eroded by the threat of US trade sanctions and corporate bullying. As examples of this, it points to: - the legal action by 40 drugmakers against the South African government; - the case brought by the USA against Brazil at the WTO; and - the formal threat of trade sanctions against more than 15 developing countries, including India, the Dominican Republic and Thailand.

A consistent theme in each of these cases is an attempt to create corporate monopolies and restrict the market competition needed to make medicines affordable to the poor, according to Oxfam's director of policy, Justin Forsyth. He described these developments as "the shadowy side of globalization" and called on the WTO to change the rules that the drug industry "is now using to cripple cheap, local competition which in turn is inflating the cost of new and patented medicines."