Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2005. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Bangkok Post - June 16, 2005
Achara Ashayagachat
The organisations, led by FTA Watch, have sent a letter to Paul Hunt, the Geneva-based special rapporteur to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights on the right to health, asking him to use his influence with the Thai government, which will hold its fourth round of FTA talks with the US in Montana on July 11.
The groups want the Thai government to protect the right of HIV/Aids patients and other patients in general to continue to receive cheap medicines by not including the pharmaceutical industry in intellectual property protection under the planned Thai-US FTA deal.
According to the letter, if drugs for HIV/Aids patients and the pharmaceutical industry are included, many Thai patients will be severely affected.
Of about 700,000 HIV-infected people in Thailand, only about 50,000 receive non-patented drugs from the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation while there are 25,000 new infections every year.
If strict protections on the sale of non-patented drugs are enforced, the patients will be forced to pay for the expensive medicines, according to the letter.
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