The stage is set for a fiery clash between President Trump and more than 140 world leaders this week at the 73rd U.N. General Assembly. The U.N. system is a signal legacy of the U.S.-led post-World War II rules-based order, but increasingly the two are taking divergent paths.
The bureaucratic workings of the U.N. should give Americans pause. Countries like Saudi Arabia that jail women right-to-drive activists are on the U.N. Commission responsible for promoting gender equality; and Syria, suspected of using sarin gas on its own people, was allowed to preside over the U.N. conference responsible for banning chemical weapons.
The tolerance embedded in the U.N. system ensures countries of all stripes will be in the room, keeping the peace depends on it. But, it doesn’t mean foxes should be given keys to the hen house.
Many U.N. antics have been antagonistic to U.S. interests. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley has taken a stand by walking out of a one-sided Security Council meeting attacking Israel for defending its border and withdrew from the Human Rights Council. The U.S. should find partnerships at the U.N., not anti-U.S. agendas.
One theme particularly alarming to U.S. interests and the world innovative ecosystem is the anti-intellectual property language that is frequently entertained at the World Health Organization, an agency of the U.N.
WHO has an outsize incentive to paint a bleak health outlook and adopt noncore work — it helps for raising money. WHO is cash-strapped and relies on voluntary contributions to meet its budgetary goals. The U.S. supplies 45 percent of that and is the largest donor by far.
One example is the Political Declaration to End Tuberculosis, which will be voted on at the UNGA this week. Member states writing it refused to accept U.S. language affirming intellectual property rights as an important incentive to develop new health innovations.
Instead, the latest draft refers to a nonbinding World Trade Organization declaration that says “intellectual property rights should be interpreted and implemented in a manner supportive of the right of Member States to protect public health.” In other words: Pharmaceutical patents can be broken for any reason, anytime. It’s a wink and nod for countries like Colombia and Chile to pursue compulsory licenses with the full backing of the body.
Imagine if the U.N. took the same approach to other human rights, encouraging governments to protect or infringe on the right to practice religion, speech, and assembly as long as it advanced government determined objectives.
There is no debate. Intellectual property rights are an incentive to innovate, by definition. Patents are a temporary monopoly granted and protected by governments so that innovators, like U.S. pharmaceutical companies, or you, will invest time and money knowing they will be able to own the fruits of their labor. And it works.
Historically, the U.S. has protected IP rights more than any other country. As a result, the U.S. biopharmaceutical industry is the most innovative, R&D intensive, and leads the world in clinical trials and clinical research. IP-intensive activity also carries with it technology diffusion, higher salaries, and strengthens connections between universities and research institutions. It’s a win for patients, a win for science, and a win for governments in meeting their long-term health objectives. The only requirement is a commitment to protect the rights of inventors.
One might think if the U.N. body is questioning the incentive power of IP rights to “promote access to medicines for all” that there must be an exceptional health crisis. There is not. According to WHO, the success rate of people being treated for TB is 83 percent, the TB mortality rate fell 37 percent between 2000 and 2016 (53 million lives saved), and 65 percent of new cases come from only 7 countries, 99 percent of all cases are in developing countries. TB innovation is also coming along; there are 17 drugs in clinical trials, 20 drugs are already available, and there are 12 vaccine candidates.
Globally, between 2000 and 2016, TB incidence dropped 19 percent. More specifically, they were down 23 percent in sub-Saharan Africa, 26 percent in India, and 31 percent in low-income countries.
In the developed world, TB was eradicated as a health risk long ago. In those few countries where TB still pokes its head, the culprit is governance — and enforcing of IP rights can help. TB is combated by public awareness, proper sanitation, and well-funded health institutions to detect, regulate, and prescribe effective medicines.
In the developing world, those medicines are often either counterfeits, falsified, or substandard. Specifically, studies find illicit tuberculosis medicines, about 16 percent in Africa and 10 percent in India, have a less active pharmaceutical ingredient which allows the “germs to multiply and morph into new strains, making them harder and more expensive to treat.” One of the few countries where multidrug resistance TB is a significant problem is Russia — which is why the appointment of Tereza Kasaeva from the Russian Health Ministry to run the WHO’s global TB program was met with much controversy.
Creating a customs and regulatory framework with the capacity to police drugs is one part of the solution. New drugs must continue to be invented too. In “Ending Neglect,” the U.S. Committee for the Elimination of Tuberculosis recounts how on the eve of totally eliminating TB, the U.S. cut funding for control and in the 1980s for research. TB became resurgent. In the 1990s, funding was restored and the CDC restarted open competition for clinical trials, TB is now at an all-time global low.
The solution to the health crisis has never been to undermine incentives to innovate. Decreasing health costs and future medical breakthroughs will always rely on intellectual property rights to fuel the fire of invention. If WHO wants an enthusiastic global partner, it should affirm what is already obvious: IP rights are an incentive to innovate.
Philip Thompson is a policy analyst for intellectual property and international trade with the Property Rights Alliance, an affiliate of Americans for Tax Reform.
