WTO talks open medicine access

GENEVA -- Negotiators opened talks Monday at the World Trade Organization on the issue of access to medicines in hopes of reaching a compromise by an end-of-year deadline between the United States, which wants to protect its pharmaceutical industry, and developing countries stricken by epidemics. \nDiplomats entering the WTO headquarters were confronted with health activists wheeling a "pneumonia victim" out of an ambulance to illustrate the plight of the sick and poor who can not afford drugs taken for granted by the rich. \n"Rich countries pushed by the pharmaceutical giants, continue to block any meaningful solution by insisting on unreasonable restrictions to the legitimate right to health of hundreds of millions of poor people," said the British aid group Oxfam, which organized the demonstration with Medecins Sans Frontiers, also known as Doctors Without Borders. \nAt issue are the WTO rules on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights. A ministerial meeting in Qatar one year ago recognized the right of WTO members to override patents on expensive Western drugs and make the products themselves when public health is at stake. \nHowever, drugs made under such "compulsory licensing" were to be used only domestically and not exported. \nDeveloping countries, led by South Africa and Brazil, reluctantly accepted the declaration rather than cause the collapse of the bid to launch a wider trade round. In return, the WTO's TRIPS council was instructed to solve the problem by the end of this year.