Indian Prime Minister must resist European pressure to trade away health, says MSF

India should resist pressure from the European Union to accept, as part of a free trade agreement, harmful provisions that will have a major negative impact on the availability of affordable medicines, the international medical humanitarian organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) last week.

The MSF last year launched a campaign demanding “Europe! HANDS OFF our medicine,” which it renewed while the trade talks were taking place in Brussels, Belgium (The Pharma Letter November 9, 2010).

As discussions on the sensitive intellectual property chapter in the free trade agreement resume, reports now indicate the Indian Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) may be ready to concede to European demands, imposing severe limitations on the ability of Indian generic manufacturers to produce affordable medicines, says MSF.