Marion Edmunds
One of the staunchest supporters of the principles underlying Minister of Health Nkosazana Zumas controversial medical Bills has crossed swords with the minister over her bid for more power.
The Medical Control Council (MCC) chair, Professor Peter Folb, is to petition ANC parliamentarians on Monday to oppose Zuma, her director general Olive Shisana and her camp of advisers, over a provision in the Medicines and Related Substances Amendment Bill that empowers her to overrule the MCC. He believes this provision will cause irreparable damage to the health sector.
The Bill is one of three complicated Bills before Parliament this session, which have triggered a confusing frenzy of lobbying and slander campaigns by health sector players.
Folb has been invited to address the health portfolio committee in camera as an independent consultant next week.
When the medicines sector breaks down, then the health sector breaks down. I am so convinced that this Bill is wrong that my colleagues and I will do everything in our power to stop the provisions, Folb said.
Folbs arguments were dismissed by Zuma at earlier public hearings, and the MCCs opposition has been overshadowed by a vigorous campaign by the multi-national pharmaceutical industry this week to knock the same provisions out of the Bill.
The multinationals object to the Bill because it allows parallel importation of drugs, which means South Africa could buy a patented drug from countries where it is cheaper instead of from the South African branch of a pharmaceutical company licensed to sell the drug in this country.
The companies say this practice would put their pharmaceutical patents at risk, threatening their investments in South Africa. They say the Bill contravenes international regulations, and that South Africa ultimately will have to withdraw the legislation, after an expensive challenge at the World Trade Organisation. Multinational giants such as Merck, who addressed the committee this week, have the backing of the United States and European Union governments, and are hinting at sanctions.
The minister is standing fast, confident that she is on the right side of the law. She has the backing of the Department of Trade and Industry and international lawyers, such as US-based James Love, who is regarded by the international pharmaceutical industry as a patent- buster.
Meanwhile, loose talk behind the scenes says that Folb has a personal agenda. Others say that he is out of touch with international precedents. There is a power struggle, said Dr Wilbert Bannenberg, when asked to explain the differences between Zuma and her MCC chair. Its a transformation thing.
Bannenberg has been seconded to the health department by the World Health Organisation to help implement a drugs policy.
The multinationals label him a consumer activist, and believe he, and other partisan advisers, are lobbying against pharmaceutical giants through Zuma.
Bannenberg denies that he is the power behind the throne. The minister is neutral … I find this criticism ungentlemanly … just because I have worked in NGOs who have not been sympathetic to the pharmaceutical industry.
Bannenberg later stressed that he was not attacking Folb personally, because mudslinging did not solve problems in the drugs debate. His rejection of the stance of the MCC is echoed by the chief director for registration, regulation and procurement, Bada Pharasi, who said he was unsure of the essence of Folbs arguments. Folb is basing his opinion on a prediction.
Pharasi, however, explained the minister needed these powers. If, for example, there was an outbreak of a strange disease, and there is a drug that might be able to treat it but might not be proven, and there is … no time for clinical trials and somebody has to take the decision, it should be the minister. There would be a great responsibility that would go with the power, and nobody would want to abuse it.
While agreeing that it was unlikely that the minister would abuse her power, Folb fears that this precarious power might be delegated to a less responsible official.
She could appoint an adviser who could become the drug regulatory authority in competition with the MCC. If that person is scrupulous, all is good and well, but if that person is open to corruption, or special deals, the problems will be enormous.
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