Oxfam - Make Trade Fair
Oxfam's Make Trade Fair campaign includes the Medicines for Life campaign. They lobby countries and organisations to act consider the issue from the perspective of "patients over profit".
This lobbying sometimes includes mass campaigning mechanisms. This came into action when Novartis, the Swiss pharmaceutical manufacturer, challenged India's patent laws after their patent application for the drug Glivec was rejected. Oxfam argued that if this challenge was sucessful that
"This could seriously impede poor people obtaining cheaper medicines"
and that their actions were
"against an international agreement that declares that developing countries can produce and import cheaper versions of medicines in the interests of public health" which we learnt about in an earlier tutorial.
In November 2006, Oxfam decided to pursue a mass campaign action and directed supporters and other campaigners to email Dr Daniel Vasella, the CEO of Novartis to tell him how they felt. The standard message that Oxfam supplied read as follows, but campaigners were able to customise this to their own design:
| I am concerned that Novartis' actions in India contradict its stated commitment to 'conscientious global citizenship'. In the interest of public health and in order for medicines to be available and affordable for people in India and worldwide, I urge Novartis to:
1 Withdraw the appeal against the Indian Patent Office on the cancer medicine Glivec®/Gleevec®;
2 Withdraw the legal case it is pursuing seeking changes to the Indian Patent Law;
3 Publicly commit to the right of developing countries to provide cheaper medicines in the interests of public health.
I look forward to hearing from you.
|
This email was sent by thousands across the globe, and was met with a long response from Novartis. Oxfam used that response to highlight to all the major issues at stake, and to show where the different approaches to ensuring Access to Essential Medicines come into play.
More details on this case-study - including the full text of the Novartis reply, and Oxfam's response to it is available here.
That's the end of this case, back to the Case Studies
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