Tuesday, December 18, 2007 Editorial: Giving way to cheaper medicines
THE public image of our lawmakers will be redeemed if they will devote extra efforts on House Bill (HB) 2844, otherwise known as the Cheaper Medicines Bill, and pass it before they go on recess on December 21.
House members should realize that medicine in our country is the second most costly in Asia, which is probably the reason behind the popularity of herbal cures.
The bill is "an amalgam of strategies seeking to provide consumer access to cheaper medicines" considering that in our country the prices of medicines are prohibitive.
Those familiar with the workings of the House estimates, however, that even if the bill was certified urgent by the President its passage may have to wait until early next year.
Early this week, the House debate over the bill grew quite heated when Cebu Representative Pablo Garcia argued against the proponents regarding some of the measure's worrisome provisions.
Garcia feared these would hinder the bill's effectiveness in the sense that even if it is passed, "nothing will happen for two or three years."
Garcia proposed an amendment to the Intellectual Property Code (IPC).
He wants to allow not only the "parallel importation of patented drugs" but also include importation of "off-patent drugs since patented ones made up only less than 10 percent of the local pharmaceutical market."
The present provision of IPC allows the "exploitation of patents of key drugs so long as public interest required it."
Government agencies were authorized to make such a judgment call without presidential intervention.
What makes HB 2844 appear more adverse to the interest of the very people the bill seeks to help, according to Garcia, is the addition by the House committee of "conditions which would favor the multinational patent holders."
It would seem then that the Cheaper Medicines Bill, as proposed in the House, does not entirely cotton to its overall purpose of extending the benefits of affordable medicines to the nation's sick but poor.
Indeed, the imperative need of our countryside inhabitants is the opportunity to buy the medicines they need at prices within their reach, and thus be able to enjoy the same level of health the more affluent among us are enjoying now.
If only for this noble rationale, the august members of the House should endeavor to pass the needed bill.
