A-Infos (en) France, Union Communiste Libertaire UCL - Call: Medicine: a common good (fr, it, pt)[machine translation]

Pharmaceutical workers, health professionals, former researchers, journalists, unionists and political activists publish a manifesto to make 
the drug a common good. We relay this call in which the Libertarian Communist Union finds itself. ---- "We affirm: ---- Health is a 
universal right[...]. ---- Access to medication is a human right based on the inalienable right to care. ---- Equal access to medicines is 
an essential condition for the enjoyment of the right to health. [...] ---- The need to abolish the notion of private property and monopoly 
of intellectual property rights over the drugs allocated by invention patents.
Want to break with the logic of financial profitability to give primacy to the protection of public health.
The principle of public and environmental health on a planetary scale, the creation of a new ecosystem, the re-founding of international 
cooperation and the establishment of social security with a universal vocation."
This is how the manifesto of the "Medicines: a common good " campaign opens, whose priority objective is the abolition of patents on 
medicines. The Libertarian Communist Union recognizes itself in this manifesto and encourages everyone to sign the manifesto and publicize 
the campaign.

Libertarian Communist Union, May 11, 2020

cc Rawpixel
Manifesto
FOR SOCIAL APPROPRIATION OF THE MEDICINAL PRODUCT

We affirm:

Health is a universal right: States, public authorities, all actors acting in the health field, must guarantee equal access for all and 
everyone to quality care and treatment.
Access to medication is a human right based on the inalienable right to care.
Equal access to medicines is an essential condition for the enjoyment of the right to health. In this sense, the drug is a common good of 
humanity, under the condition of a collective and democratic appropriation of the peoples, in each country and on a planetary scale.
The need to abolish the notion of private property and monopoly of intellectual property rights over the drugs allocated by invention patents.
Want to break with the logic of financial profitability to give primacy to the protection of public health.
The principle of public and environmental health on a planetary scale, the creation of a new ecosystem, the re-founding of international 
cooperation and the establishment of social security with a universal vocation
Context: The production of drugs, analyzed as a production of goods, does not meet the needs of populations:

The global drug market represents a turnover exceeding 1,000 billion euros with a profitability of 20%, the most profitable of capitalism, 
giving the pharmaceutical industries considerable power in the economic sector. Considering the drug as a simple good As a merchant, the 
pharmaceutical industries spend more on marketing, marketing and lobbying costs than on research & development (R&D) while justifying sales 
prices by the cost of R&D.

Under the pretext of innovative treatments, a game of dupes is established between the governments, the health decision-makers and the 
leaders of the multinationals of the drug which obtain that they are paid at the high price of the molecules for the sometimes modest 
medical service. They punctuate all over the world provident systems and public funds such as that of Social Security in France. In defiance 
of public health, and in a total lack of transparency, the pharmaceutical groups thus ensure a source of comfortable profits, to the great 
satisfaction of the shareholders.

The pharmaceutical industry, owner of the patents for profitability champion molecules, blockbusters, has exploited this policy to the 
maximum to dominate the market, generating billions of dollars. To the point of saturating certain therapeutic areas with equivalent 
molecules while other fundamentals are neglected.

In search of new strategies, Big Pharma outsource their research on the one hand to public laboratories or small companies, and on the other 
hand, reorient themselves towards the development of biological products, more difficult to copy, thus allowing them to '' demand exorbitant 
prices. These new therapies can only benefit solvent markets. This commercial logic directs research in a discriminated manner leading to 
the cessation of research in several essential therapeutic areas.

The application of the patent legal system to drugs gives multinational corporations discretion to set selling prices. The drug is subject 
to the ordinary law of patentable products. Under the argument of encouraging investment in R&D in the private sectors, the application of 
the legal system of patents to drugs protects pharmaceutical companies from all competition during the 20 years of exclusivity.

Since the 1980s, at the behest of large pharmaceutical companies, intellectual property rights over medicines have been constantly 
strengthened. Thus, under the aegis of the WTO, the agreements on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS - Marrakech, 
1994) set a pattern of aggressive exploitation of intellectual property on an international scale, aggravated by the TRIPS + provisions.

Finally, under the cover of the development of gene therapies and via public-private partnerships, private companies have obtained the 
exploitation of intellectual property titles on the results of university public research, thus allowing them to extend patentability to the 
field of life. (Bay-Dole-Act in the United States in 1980, in Europe in the 1990s). This is often the case with targeted therapies in the 
treatment of cancers (depending on genetic characteristics), the prices of which are so staggering that only narrow populations with the 
financial means will be able to benefit from them.

The sale price of drugs, the margins that result from them, can only be explained by the application of patents and the monopoly that 
results from them. The main consequence is to have made access to medicines for whole populations difficult or even impossible.

What we want:

Universal accessibility to health care and medicines. Public authorities must guarantee this right according to the criteria of equality, 
quality and security, which implies a public health policy, public services and research budgets commensurate with needs.
Refuse the commodification of health care including drugs so that public health objectives are no longer dominated by the consumerism of 
pharmaceutical products. Essential drugs when they are "available, economically affordable, of good quality and well used" can meet the 
priority health needs of the population.
Refuse the use of populations as human guinea pigs, for food or any other retribution, for the experimentation of new molecules.
The exit from the pharmaceutical industry's strategies which aim at the profitability of capital and exert strong pressures on public health 
policies. To do this, new models of R&D, production and distribution of quality products must be put in place, controlled by the citizens.
Liberate and promote research: The organization and orientations of fundamental research must be free from all constraints and not be 
subject to the financial aims of pharmaceutical companies. The use of research results and the development of innovations that can lead to 
therapeutic improvements must be defined according to the public health needs of the world population, in the general interest and under 
citizen control. International cooperation should be encouraged and public funding provided to the necessary level. The results, as new 
discoveries or innovations are made, must be made public so that the scientific knowledge base of the world is enriched and the knowledge 
shared.
Recast international legislation on intellectual and industrial property applied to medicines, based on the primacy of public health.
The drug patent system must be repealed. The derogations obtained by certain countries making it possible to circumvent the patents 
(compulsory license), certainly made temporarily withdraw the firms with the exorbitant requirements, but without settling the problem on 
the bottom and the long term.
Denounce the Agreements on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and the TRIPS + provisions which make developing 
countries lose all latitude in terms of public health policy, and limit that of developed producing countries.
Revisit European Directive 98/44 relating to the patentability of genetic sequences and organisms containing patentable entities.
We propose to all stakeholders and users of the health sector to mobilize for the social and public appropriation of the drug chain.

It is necessary and urgent to assert the values of solidarity and universality at the foundation of our health systems. It is therefore 
necessary to wrest the power of decisions from a tiny minority of humans, shareholders and decision-makers, to obtain a real response to the 
needs of billions of humans.

The call "Medicine: a common good" , April 2020.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Medicament-un-bien-commun
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