Healthy Skepticism Library item: 9369
Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.
Publication type: media release
Open letter from clinicians and researchers to Miles White, Abbott CEO
Health Gap 2007 Apr 13
http://www.healthgap.org/camp/abbott.html
Notes:
To add your name, email Asia Russell at: asia@healthgap.org by Thursday, April 18.
To access supporting documents, please follow link to Health Gap site.
Full text:
In order to convey to Abbott CEO Miles White the outrage among health care providers and researchers in response to his decision to retaliate against Thai patients for the lawful compulsory licenses issued by the Thai government, groups are circulating the international sign-on letter below. This letter will be delivered ahead of Abbott’s Annual General Meeting for shareholders, in Abbott Park, Illinois on April 27, 2007.
For the many people who are concerned about Abbott’s unacceptable actions, but who are not clinicians or researchers, please contact us to find out more about what you can do to be part of this campaign.
To endorse, please send your name, location (city and country) and affiliation (for identification purposes only) to Asia Russell at: asia@healthgap.org or call +1 267 475 2645. The current deadline for sign on is end of day Thursday, April 18. Please take a moment to forward this timely request to contacts in your networks.
Supporting documents:
PhRMA lies and Distortions – Thai Compulsory Licenses
Pharma’s Seven Deadly Lies about Thai Compulsory Licenses
Standing Up To Abbott’s Decision to Withhold Registration and Marketing
of Life-Saving Medicines – A New Variant of Pharmaceutical Apartheid
A New Low in the Pharma Drug Wars – Abbott Withdraws Seven Medicines in Thailand
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To: Abbott CEO and Chairman Miles White
From: Clinicians and researchers around the world
Miles White
Chairman and CEO
Abbott Laboratories
100 Abbott Park Road
Abbott Park, IL 60064
Dear Miles White,
We, the undersigned, are disappointed and outraged by Abbott’s decision to stop marketing new medicines in Thailand and to withdraw all applications to register medicines in the country.
Abbott has decided to retreat from the Thai market in retaliation to Thailand’s lawful decision to issue compulsory licenses for three medicines, including for two antiretrovirals: efavirenz and lopinavir+ritonavir (Kaletra). These compulsory licenses will achieve reductions in costs and will increase access to critically important medicines in Thailand, something protracted negotiations between the Thai government and Abbott unfortunately did not achieve.
Abbott’s decision to deny medicines to Thai patients is an inappropriate response to the lawful actions of a country addressing its urgent public health needs in a manner that is completely consistent with its international obligations according to the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), and it is also
consistent with Thai national law.
Furthermore, you are clearly attempting to set a precedent and send a message to other developing countries that they, too, will be punished in this fashion should they decide to use their lawful right to issue compulsory licenses to increase access to medicines. This is unacceptable.
Importantly, your decision identifies you as an outlier among pharmaceutical companies: at this point in time time we are aware of no other pharmaceutical company that has ever responded as you have in reaction to the issuance of compulsory licenses.
If Abbott believed that Thailand’s actions were not consistent with their TRIPS commitments then there are legal avenues by which to contest this. However, by withdrawing registrations for essential medicines from the Thai market, such as heat-stable lopinavir+ritonavir—an essential antiretroviral adapted for hot climates and particularly important for tropical countries like Thailand—Abbott has chosen instead to hold Thai patients hostage.
As clinicians and researchers from around the world we find this unacceptable and demand that you reverse your decision immediately.
Sincerely,
Blanca Baldoceda, MD
PCC Salud Family Health Center
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Alice Furumoto-Dawson, Ph.D.
Sr. Research Associate
Center for Interdisciplinary Health Disparities Research
Institute for Mind & Biology
University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Deborah V. Edidin, M.D
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Glencoe, Illinois, USA
Andrea C. Ely, M.D., M.Sc.
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Division of General and Geriatric Medicine
Kansas City, Kansas, USA
David Egilman MD, MPH
Clinical Associate Professor Of Community Medicine
Brown University
Attleboro, Massachusetts, USA
David G Legge
Associate Professor
School of Public Health
La Trobe University
Bundoora, Australia
David Hoos, MD, MPH
Mailman School of Public Health
Columbia University
New York, New York, USA
Gregory P. Melcher, M.D.
Professor of Clinical Medicine
Sacramento, CA
University of California, Davis School of Medicine
Department of Internal Medicine
Division of Infectious Diseases
Joel E. Gallant, MD, MPH
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Josiah D. Rich, M.D., M.P.H.
Professor of Medicine and Community Health
Brown University
The Miriam Hospital
Providence, Rhode Island, USA
Joyce C. Lashof, MD
School of Public Health
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, California, USA
Marc A. Snyder, MD
Medical Director
St. Luke’s Hospital Emergency Department
San Francisco, California, USA
Mardge Cohen, MD
Director of Women’s HIV Research
CORE Center
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Mark Tyndall BSc MD ScD FRCPC
Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Senior Scholar
Associate Professor of Medicine
University of British Columbia
Program Director, Epidemiology
BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS
Head, Division of Infectious Diseases
St. Paul’s Hospital
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Michel D. Kazatchkine, MD
Département d’Immunologie Clinique
Hôpital Européen Georges Pompidou
Paris, France
Ramya Srinivasan, MD
San Francisco, California
University of California San Francisco and Children’s Hospital
Oakland, California, USA
Roberta J. Lee, RN, MSN, MPH
Assistant Professor of Clinical Nursing
University of Cincinnati
Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Sara Levin, MD
Staff Physician, Internal Medicine
Contra Costa Regional Medical Center
Martinez, California, USA
Stephen Raffanti MD MPH
Chief Medical Officer
Comprehensive Care Center
Associate Professor of Medicine
Divsion of Infectious Diseases
Vanderbilt University
Sural Shah
Hershey, USA
Medical Student/Clinical Research Fellow Penn State
University College of Medicine American Medical Student Association
Susan Cu-Uvin, M.D.
Professor, Obstetrics-Gynecology and Medicine
Director, The Immunology Center
The Miriam Hospital
Brown University
Providence, Rhode Island, USA
Wendy Armstrong, MD
Cleveland Clinic
Cleveland, Ohio, USA
