PLEA TO LOWER PHARMACEUTICAL PRICES FOR POOREST COUNTIES

VATICAN CITY, MAY 22, 2001 (VIS) - Archbishop Javier Lozano Barragan, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry, addressed the 54th World Health Assembly on Wednesday, May 16 in Geneva, Switzerland. The meeting began May 14 and ends today.

In his discourse, the text of which was published today, the head of the Holy See delegation affirmed that the Church "recognizes the intellectual ownership of pharmaceutical patents, on the condition that they respect the international well-being of health and the conditions foreseen by proper national and international legislation" and has consistently taught that "there is a 'social mortgage' on all private property."

Archbishop Barragan noted that "the 'social mortgage' which, as the Pope affirms, also weighs heavily on patents, must allow the lowering of medicine prices as well as those of all science and medical technology products." On this point, the archbishop affirmed that it is necessary "to differentiate the price of pharmaceuticals destined for markets in industrialized countries from that in developing countries. It is also necessary to promote pharmaceutical research on lesser-known products or those destined for the cure of specific illnesses of developing countries. Furthermore, it is necessary to expand the list of generic medicines destined for the majority of the worldwide population and to promote national legislation and international agreements in order to counter the monopoly of a few pharmaceutical industries and thus to bring down prices, in particular of products destined for developing countries. Finally, it would be necessary to promote agreements for the proper transfer of health-care technology to these countries."

DELSS;HEALTH; MEDICINE;...;LOZANO;VIS;20010522;Word: 260;