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Posted on Categories Featured 96 Comments on Disparities hinder passage of common East African AIDS drugs-access laws

Disparities hinder passage of common East African AIDS drugs-access laws

By Zakumumpa Henry

Disparities between the views of East African community (EAC) member countries are complicating efforts to pass a common intellectual property law that would enable access to antiretrovirals to be scaled- up in the area, a regional meeting of East African Health rights NGOs was told last week (12 April 2012).

The three-day meeting held at the Imperial Botanical Beach hotel attracted participants from Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda, the countries that make up the EAC.

Moses Mulumba, an intellectual property expert who conducted the study, said there were many disparities between the member states, which is making the passage of a common ‘TRIPS [trade related intellectual property rights] flexibilities’ compliant law difficult.

Currently, Kenya is regarded as a ‘developing’ country while the rest of the East African member states are regarded as ‘least developed countries’ or LDCs.

Mr Mulumba emphasized that this differention is complicating the making of uniform strategies and laws as developing countries are no longer permitted to manufacture generic antiretrovirals drugs whereas LDCs have a grace period running up to 2016 to do just that and also have the opportunity to reform their laws to permit them to continue manufacturing generic antiretrovirals.

In November 1999, the East African Community Treaty was signed by its member states. This means decisions taken at the EAC level, since they are legally-binding on all member states, supersede those taken at individual member country level. Currently, the proposed East African anti-counterfeit bill (2010) looks set to threaten access to essential medicines due to its intellectual property enforcement stance.

Mr Mulumba also revealed there were differences between government sector ministries in East Africa regarding enforcing intellectual property rights, with East African health ministries taking on a public health focus of enabling access to essential medicines while the trade ministries had a bias of enforcing the protection of business interests and private innovation rights.

Further illustrating the disparities, it was revealed that Kenya already has an act on anti counterfeiting while Uganda has a bill before parliament and Tanzania has regulations made under the trade marks law.

At the meeting, it was also revealed that the different East African countries preferred to move at different paces in reforming intellectual property-associated laws, with Tanzania preferring a slower and more cautious approach.

It was noted at the meeting that in regard to laws relating to intellectual property rights, there is widespread, erroneous mixing of the issue of quality and standards on the one hand and enforcing private rights of innovators and inventors on the other.

Jane Nalunga, Country Director of SEATINI-Uganda, an NGO that seeks to strengthen Africa’s world trade position, called on East African countries to negotiate for fairer international trade laws as an East African block as this gave them better leverage than as individual countries.

Ambassador Nathan Irumba of SEATINI said: ‘’Develop intellectual property laws that are based on your current level of development; ones that won’t strangle indigenous efforts. Japan and China did not hurry to enforce intellectual property rights of foreigners until they had reached a certain level of development themselves. How many East Africans have filed applications for patents?’’

The meeting was hosted by SEATINI-Uganda in partnership with Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) and HAI –Africa with funding from the Open Society Foundation.

Source: http://www.keycorrespondents.org/2012/04/16/disparities-hinder-passage-of-common-east-african-aids-drugs-access-laws/

Posted on Categories News 335 Comments on GMO foods should be labelled

GMO foods should be labelled

Now, I may not be smart enough to understand the argument, but why hide from the consumers how the food product you are peddling is really made, refusing to name precisely what is in it? So far, as I understand it, that is the logic of US-based agriculture giant Monsanto which has threatened to sue the State of Vermont for crafting a law that would require all foods to be clearly labelled.

The agri-business multinational let it be known that it will fight the proposed bill known as H-722 (the “VT Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act”) because it discriminates against genetically modified food. The bill still in the initial stages of formulation would require food producers to label their food products, a move that would compel Monsanto to slap the GMO label on all its food products.

The problem for me is two fold. On the one hand, Monsanto which has cornered the market on genetically produced food seem to be saying, “Look here, GMO foods are safe, nutritious and wholesome and you should eat them”.

On this basis alone, one would expect the agri-business giant to embrace food labelling in order to effectively market its food product. If, as Monsanto argues, genetically modified food is the way of the future, the salvation for humankind, then it makes sense that it should be called by its name so that eager consumers will line up for it.

On the other hand, even as it proclaims from the rooftop the safety aspects of GMO foods, Monsanto is slyly shying away from the spotlight, indeed, aggressively ensuring that GMO foods are never labelled.

This contradictory action has two implications, one being that consumers must trust Monsanto when it says that genetically made food is safe, nutritious and healthy. Secondly, Monsanto is also saying that consumers should never be trusted to make choices based on transparent information. The average person, in Monsanto’s warped thinking, is probably an idiot who, given the freedom of choice through food labelling, will always make the wrong choice.

Now I have maintained in many of my previous writings that it is unthinkable that just one or two multinational companies could soon control food production. But is precisely what Monsanto is aiming to do—control food production and corner the market. It goes without saying that whoever controls food production will control human behaviour for eternity, dictating who will survive and who will die, who will reproduce children and who will not because food, after all, is life.

But scratching deeper, the threat to sue a whole state planning to create a law to protect consumers has more immediate implication for Monsanto which is keenly aware that its genetically produced food is contaminating natural food supplies.

There are organic farmers who have begun to sue Monsanto for these contaminations, but by not labelling foods, Monsanto believes there will be a time when all the natural food supplies will be so contaminated that such lawsuits will become meaningless anyway. In the meantime, it is Monsanto that is suing, mostly successfully, farmers whose fields are contaminated by genetically modified varieties, claiming that the farmers in effect stole the GMO patent.

The case is still fresh of the Canadian farmer whose crops was contaminated by Monsanto’s genetically modified crops and, to add salt to injury, was sued by Monsanto for patent infringement. The Supreme Court of Canada agreed with Monsanto that the farmer indeed infringed on Monsanto’s patent rights.

It is like the cow rancher who cries foul when one of his bulls jumps the fence, mate with one of your thoroughbred cows, impregnates it and produces a mixed breed calf of indeterminate quality. Even though you are the victim, the rancher neighbour yammers loudly for compensation and, worse, the court agrees with him.

For me, genetically modified food remains an undetermined food with many long term ill consequences for consumers.

And although proponents of GMO like to point out that these products are now consumed widely, my rejoinder is simply that GMO is very young when considered in the context of human food production. Fifty years from now, what will be discover in GMO foods that we are currently blind to?

The history of science, after all, is filled with thousands of victims who suffered serious health consequences after being reassured that certain drugs were safe. We still all remember Thalidomide, the wonder drug that was introduced by a German drug maker in 1957 as a treatment for morning sickness in pregnant women. By the time it was withdrawn from the market, over 10,000 deformed children were born, many without limbs.

By threatening to sue the State of Vermont, Monsanto essentially wants to have its cake and eat it too. If it is peddling genetically modified food as good, safe and healthy products then it must also allow them to be labelled as such.

I, as a consumer, must know what I am buying from the grocery store. There is no way I can surrender my rights to know what goes in my stomach just so that a corporate giant can have its profits.

No way.

Opiyo.oloya@sympatico.ca
Twitter: @OpiyoOloya

Source: http://www.newvision.co.ug/news/107-blog-gmo-foods-should-be-labelled.aspx

Posted on Categories News 323 Comments on Ugandan Government To Be Held Accountable For Maternal Deaths In Landmark Constitutional Petition 16

Ugandan Government To Be Held Accountable For Maternal Deaths In Landmark Constitutional Petition 16

After a frustrating year of slow progress, a landmark lawsuit that seeks to hold the Ugandan government accountable for the high number of preventable maternal deaths in the country may finally see a resolution, RH Reality Check reports.

In August 2009, 40-year-old Sylvia Nalubowa died in labor in a hospital in Mityana, Uganda, after medical workers asked for bribes and then failed to treat her when the mother of seven refused, the Guardian reports.

Her death incited protests in the African country that sees 16 women die each day in childbirth.

Activists and community members took to the streets to challenge the rampant corruption, lack of trained staff and skimpy health budget that have plagued Uganda in recent years and which, activists say, has resulted in the unnecessary deaths of women like Nalubowa, Independent Online reports.

Then in December 2010, Jennifer Anguko, a popular elected official, bled to death in the maternity ward of a major public hospital in Arua when her uterus ruptured after 15 hours of obstructed labor.

According to the New York Times, Anguko was bleeding for 12 hours in the hospital before she was finally seen by a doctor. By the time she went into surgery an hour later, it was too late and the mother of three died on the operating table.

Last March, Ugandan human rights groups led by the Center for Health, Human Rights and Development joined the families of Nalubowa and Anguko to file a petition against the government of Uganda.
The landmark petition argues that by not providing essential medical commodities and health services to pregnant women, the Ugandan government has violated the constitutional rights of Ugandans — including the right to health, the right to life and the rights of women.

“Maternal health [in Uganda] has been overlooked,” Primah Kwagala, a lawyer for the Centre for Health, Human Rights and Development told RH Reality Check. “People do not know that they have a right to good health service provision. They think it is a privilege.”

According to a 2010 Ugandan Health Ministry report, a majority of clinics and hospitals in the country reported regularly running out of essential medicines, while only a third of facilities delivering babies are equipped with basics like scissors and disinfectant. Many hospitals also do not get regular electricity and light, the Guardian reports.

Though the petition initially garnered plenty of global media attention and was gaining ground thanks to the support of international activists, an objection raised during the petition’s hearing slowed proceedings down, Key Correspondents reports.

Finally, after months of stagnation, a letter was released to the petitioners last week by Deputy Chief Justice Alice Mpagi Bahigeine, RH Reality Check reports.

“The delay in delivering the ruling is very much regretted,” Bahigeine wrote. “However, it has been brought to the attention of the Hon. Justice responsible and everything possible to ensure speedy disposal of the matter.”

The world is now watching to see if the Ugandan government will take responsibility for the unnecessary deaths of thousands of mothers that die every year.

source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/13/ugandan-government-to-be-_n_1422302.html

Posted on Categories News 71 Comments on Kamuli girl who walked 12km for ARVs dead

Kamuli girl who walked 12km for ARVs dead

By Tom Gwebayanga

Rachel Namulondo, the 17-year-old girl who has been trekking for 12 kilometers for five months to pick her ARV’s from Kamuli Main Hospital in Kamuli district, has died.

Namulondo, whose plight ran in New Vision, died in her 85-year-old grandfather’s hut in Gwozira zone in Nabwigulu sub-countyTuesday night.
The teen has been a common sight along Nabirumba -Kamuli road en route to pick her ARV’s from the hospital and back to her home.

Her father, Amuza Lugandha abandoned her, saying he could not waste his money on an AIDS victim.

According to Stephen Namayo, the Community Based Facilitator (CBF) under Plan-Kamuli, Namulondo died when her grandfather, Nasani Musengawe was asleep.

She developed a high temperature and started vomiting after supper which briefly stopped after midnight

Her grandfather, thinking the girl was a bit okay, retired to his bed as the girl battled for her life but died. Mzee Musengawe woke up at about 6.30 am only to find his granddaughter lifeless.

The LC1 Chairman, James Balukube said Namulondo, whose mother, Monica Nakamya, , died four years ago, got infected with HIV a decade ago as she attended to her aunt, Monique Naggita, who was an HIV/AIDS victim.

She tested HIV positive in 2004 and has been struggling to live single-handedly, picking her ARV’s on foot for the last five months of her life, until Tuesday night.

Source: http://www.newvision.co.ug/news/630309-kamuli-girl-who-walked-12km-for-arvs-dead.html

Posted on Categories General News

NGOs give EU commission a beating over anti-counterfeit pact

BY NIKOLAJ NIELSEN

BRUSSELS – Amnesty Intentional, Oxfam, Reporters without Borders as well as internet rights groups and the Council of Europe all spoke out against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Acta) at a European Parliament hearing on Wednesday (11 April).

“The vision set out by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is at stake,” warned Marianne Mollmann, senior policy advisor of the London-based organisation human rights group Amnesty International.

Mollmann said the trade agreement threatens the right to the freedom of expression, the right to health, the right to due process and fair trial, and the right of an author to benefit from the protection of moral and material interests resulting from any scientific and literary production.

“These are all human rights that need to be balanced [in Acta], and they are not,” said Mollmann, adding that the trade agreement shifts liability of copyright infringement onto service providers and encourages private entities to enforce and police its users.

The NGOs raised a number of issues surrounding the controversial agreement, qualifying it as dangerous for promoting over-policing, unreasonable levels of surveillance, risks to privacy, and even development.

None of the NGOs present at the hearing had been invited and asked to provide input during the treaty’s negotiation, creating a cloak of secrecy that some believe has further undermined its legitimacy.

As an international trade agreement, Acta is supposed to help countries work together to tackle large-scale intellectual property rights violations, according to the European Commission. It also targets counterfeit goods and generic medicines.

But mounting public pressure and protests from around Europe may derail its ratification by the European Parliament, scheduled for either June or July.

EU trade commissioner Karel de Gucht last week requested the parliament refrain from any ratification until the treaty has been scrutinised by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), a process that could take months.

The European Parliament’s international trade committee, however, voted on 29 March not to send the treaty to the ECJ.

NGOs refute Commission’s claims on Acta
The commission claims the agreement is in line with European fundamental rights such as the freedom of expression and information or data protection and the right to property including that of intellectual property.

But experts at Wednesday’s parliament hearing, organised by Dutch Liberal MEP Marietje Schaake and Bulgarian Socialist MEP Ivailo Kalfin, all refuted the commission’s claims, arguing instead that there is a clear imbalance in the favour of intellectual property rights rather than natural rights.

The treaty mentions intellectual property rights 43 times. Fundamental rights are not mentioned at all, while freedom of expression is mentioned twice as a principle rather than as a right, said Gabrielle Guillemin, a legal officer at the London-based NGO Article 19.

“The criminal provisions under Acta lack the legal certainty required under international law, under article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights as well as article 52 of the EU Charter of fundamental rights,” she explained.

The commission also says the treaty would safeguard European businesses, promote growth, stimulate innovation and create and protect millions of jobs. Again, experts at the hearing refuted the claims.

Sebastiano Toffaleti of the Pan European ICT & eBusiness Network for small businesses (PIN-SME), which represents some 50,000 small-ish IT companies, said the treaty would instead undermine European enterprise and innovation.

“Acta would hamper innovation and growth of SMEs that develop content and market it online,” said Toffaleti.

According to Toffaleti, criminal liability threats in the treaty would deter internet service providers (ISPs) from hosting products developed by SMEs irrespective whether the claims are legitimate or not.

Meanwhile, a US-based study, entitled The Sky is Rising , concluded that the entertainment industry grew by 50 percent in the last decade. The overall industry, including books, music, video games and films, grew from €341 billion in 1995 to €567 billion in 2010.

The study infers that the commission’s argument that Acta is needed to safeguard and promote such sectors is not based on fact.

“More content is being produced than ever before,” said Mike Masnick, who conducted the study. “More content is available to the public than ever before. In short, we found that the overall industry is thriving.”

Source: http://euobserver.com/22/115846

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