{"id":20647,"date":"2016-05-16T11:11:20","date_gmt":"2016-05-16T16:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=20647"},"modified":"2016-05-16T11:11:20","modified_gmt":"2016-05-16T16:11:20","slug":"leaks-show-senate-aide-threatened-colombia-over-cheap-cancer-drug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=20647","title":{"rendered":"Leaks Show Senate Aide Threatened Colombia Over Cheap Cancer Drug"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Leaks Show Senate Aide Threatened Colombia Over Cheap Cancer Drug<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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LEAKED DIPLOMATIC LETTERS\u00a0sent from Colombia\u2019s Embassy in Washington describe how a staffer with the Senate Finance Committee, which is led by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, warned of repercussions if Colombia moves forward on approving the cheaper, generic form of a cancer drug.<\/p>\n

The drug is called\u00a0imatinib<\/a>. Its manufacturer, Novartis, markets the drug in Colombia as Glivec. The World Health Organization\u2019s\u00a0List of Essential Medicines<\/a>last year suggested it as treatment not only for chronic myeloid leukemia, but also gastrointestinal tumors. Currently, the cost of an annual supply is\u00a0over $15,000<\/a>, or about two times the average Colombian\u2019s income.<\/p>\n

On\u00a0April 26<\/a>, Colombian Minister of Health Alejandro Gaviria announced plans to take the first step in a multi-step process that could eventually result in allowing generic production of the drug. A generic version of the drug that recently began production in India is\u00a0expected<\/a>\u00a0to cost 30 percent less than the brand-name version.<\/p>\n

Andr\u00e9s Fl\u00f3rez, deputy chief of mission at the Colombian Embassy in Washington, D.C., wrote letters on\u00a0April 27<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0April 28<\/a>\u00a0to Maria Angela Holguin of Colombia\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, detailing concerns he had about possible congressional retaliation for such a move. The letters were obtained by the nonprofit group Knowledge Ecology International, which works on drug patent issues. They were also leaked to Colombian media outlets\u00a0El Espectador<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0NoticiasUno<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the second letter, after a meeting with Senate Finance Committee International Trade Counsel Everett Eissenstat, Fl\u00f3rez wrote that Eissenstat said that authorizing the generic version would \u201cviolate the intellectual property rights\u201d of Novartis. Eissenstat also said that if \u201cthe Ministry of Health did not correct this situation, the pharmaceutical industry in the United States and related interest groups could become very vocal and interfere with other interests that Colombia could have in the United States,\u201d according to the letter.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leaks Show Senate Aide Threatened Colombia Over Cheap Cancer Drug LEAKED DIPLOMATIC LETTERS\u00a0sent from Colombia\u2019s Embassy in Washington describe how a staffer with the Senate Finance Committee, which is led by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, warned of repercussions if Colombia moves forward on approving the cheaper, generic form of a cancer drug. The drug is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,6],"tags":[13844,8782,13845,5567,1237,865,878,10233,13843],"class_list":["post-20647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","tag-cancer-drugs","tag-columbia","tag-orrin-hatch","tag-the-intercept","tag-us-senate","tag-washington","tag-who","tag-world-health-organization","tag-zaid-jilani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20647"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20648,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20647\/revisions\/20648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}