Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-09-05-Speech-2-320"
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"en.20060905.26.2-320"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, let us make no mistake about it, we are facing one of the world’s greatest scourges, and one that absolutely must not be regarded as inevitable. I actually think that, in this case, there is scope for the exercise of political will to a degree that there is not in the case of earthquakes and tsunamis, in the face of which we are fairly powerless.
I do not wish to be sentimental, but who cannot but think of a mother mourning her child in the belief that she had given him the medicine that would save him. Imagine there being just one similar case in Europe and what our media would make of it. There are cases like this on a daily basis in the least advanced countries. We are not in the sphere of magic and of miracle cures. This is sordid reality.
I should like to inform you, Commissioner, that, on behalf of the European Parliament and with the help of my fellow Members, I shall exercise my right to follow up this matter. In a year’s time, I shall question you again to see what has been done. There should be no let-up in fighting this war.
Here are a few figures. According to the World Health Organisation, of the million deaths attributable to malaria, 200 000 are apparently due to the counterfeiting or poor administration of medicines. The well-known British journal
attributes 192 000 deaths in China to the taking of counterfeit medicines. How many hopes are ruined by the use of these medicines? The necessary moral basis for justifying firm political action is given to us by this state of affairs, which can in no way be compared with the counterfeiting of luxury goods. I am thinking of products such as handbags, ballpoint pens, cigarette lighters and spectacles, the counterfeiting of which naturally requires the active complicity of the purchaser, who knows what he is buying and pretty rarely allows himself to be deceived. The counterfeiting of medicines is the most amoral of all forms of counterfeiting as, of course, there is no complicity at all in the purchase on the part of the buyer, who gets into debt only to end up killing his children.
In this particular case, the Food and Drug Administration and the WHO believe that 10% of the world market is affected by counterfeiting. Seventy per cent of anti-malaria drugs in seven African countries are counterfeit medicines. On average, 25% of medicines taken in the least advanced countries – 50% in the case of Pakistan and Nigeria – are counterfeit medicines.
What are we talking about? I quote the WHO’s definition. A counterfeit medicine is one that is deliberately and fraudulently mislabelled with respect to identity or source. The medicine concerned may be either patented or a generic product. Some counterfeit products contain good ingredients and others bad ones or, indeed, no active ingredient at all. There are others that do not contain enough of the active ingredient and whose packaging is misleading.
What is being done? Little or nothing! As I said, people are deceived, sometimes with their own consent; but if they kill, it is always without wanting to. We, here in the European Union, are in a protected environment. We have an efficient health system. Our health professions are monitored. The state keeps an eye on things and monitors society. We need, however, to do something for those countries that do not have all our advantages. That is a duty on the part of the Union, whose honour is at stake here.
The world is, in fact, unprotected. There is little specific legislation, either international or national. Borders are extremely porous. There is a proliferation of modern distribution systems such as the Internet. There are few or no authorities to regulate and monitor product quality. Distribution systems are archaic and unsupervised, and there is no distinguishing between counterfeited and protected brands. Let us make no mistake. It is not a bunch of naive amateurs we are dealing with here. We are dealing with a very well organised underworld, as the counterfeiting of medicines is less risky and more lucrative than drug trafficking. We therefore need to pull out all the stops and take tough action right across the board.
We ask that the European Union adopt a major role in drawing up an International Convention to combat counterfeiting at every stage. That is also the burden of written declaration no. 53, which I would encourage my fellow Members to sign.
Since the beginning of 2006, the WHO has set up a working party to perfect model legislation for tackling counterfeiting – legislation that might then be adopted by each Member State. We in the European Union have the political means to take the lead, thanks to our network of partners and to the intellectual input, political support and financial backing of the bodies responsible for the supervision that we shall be able to exercise.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have all the means required for taking action. We have a wide range of partners. We have the amount of necessary aid – need it be pointed out that we are the world’s biggest aid donor and that just a tiny portion of this aid would enable us to solve the problem? We also have the legal machinery and the means of putting pressure on the main actors, which need to be the WHO and the UN."@en1
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