Access to Life-Saving Drugs

Subject: Access to Life-Saving Drugs Sat Apr 04, 2009 12:13 am

Access to Life-Saving Drugs A resolution to reduce income inequality and increase basic welfare.
Category: Social Justice	Strength: Significant	Proposed by: Sionis Prioratus
Description: THE PEOPLES OF THE WORLD ASSEMBLED, NOTING the awe-inspiring and hard-worked advancements in the pharmaceutical industry in what regards producing life-saving drugs, rescuing entire populations from despair and certain death from some of the most deadly epidemics ever known to sapientkind, ACKNOWLEDGING that, for better or for worse, the search for financial profits and academic recognition are as of now indissociable and main driving forces for development of said life-saving drugs, FURTHER ACKNOWLEDGING that the poorest nations most of the times only benefit from these breakthroughs after decades of their inception and after countless lives were needlessly and tragically lost, destroying families, entire communities, cities, nations, regions, REALIZING that both concerns can be through good will and common sense be brought to a common and decent ground, balancing economic interests needed to continue the development of new life-saving drugs and the self-evident right of every sapient being to have access to the best medicines available to the cure of their ailments, DECLARING AS OBVIOUS that no sapient being’s health should be held hostage to any nation’s ideology, notwithstanding the sacred notion that nations of all stripes are equal before this World Assembly, RESOLVES: 1) An appropriate part of World Health Authority’s budget shall be directed for buying and distributing, when and where necessary, high-cost life-saving medications and vaccines. Negotiations shall take place between the agencies and patent holders so as to achieve a minimum acceptable price, one that does not hamper the industries affected nor further research, nor depletes the WA economic resources or otherwise adversely impacts the multitude of activities dependant on WA funding. 2) Life-saving medications’ and vaccines patents may be temporarily waivered only in the most extraordinary of situations, like in the presence of imminent or unfolding public health catastrophes, such as lethal airborne diseases with a small period of incubation, strictly for as small a period as necessary, as determined by the WHA and only after every other venue of emergency negotiations between the WA and the patent holders have been exhausted. 3) If such a waiver is to be proclaimed, patent holders shall receive financial compensation proportional to the period between such proclamation and the suspension of said waiver, after a through audit of the values disputed, done by the WHA, the WA Trade Commission, and the WA General Accounting Office, in an appropriate time frame, and always mindful of the imperative of not to adversely impact the universe of WA-funded activities. a) Funding for such compensation shall come from the usual WA funding mechanisms. Private donations, insofar they may create a perception of bias, are strictly forbidden. 4) The WHA shall, through statistical analysis, identify diseases that affect mainly the poorest populations, diseases for which there have not been as yet serious attempts at a research for a cure or a vaccine. a) A Health Research & Development Division is hereby created within the WHA, with the aim to research and develop cures and vaccines for said diseases. All breakthroughs arising therewith shall be put into public domain. Products arising from such breakthroughs shall be produced according to standards set by the WHA and its divisions, and distributed when and where necessary.