World Health Organization Picks New Leader

[Guest guest]

U.S. Under Fire As WHO Picks New Leader

By MARIA CHENG, The Associated Press

Tuesday, November 7, 2006; 4:22 PM

GENEVA -- The Bush administration's drug and sexual health policy is

a key issue as the World Health Organization chooses its next leader,

a post that wields great power in allocating billions of dollars in

funds to alleviate misery around the world.

After two days of closed-door deliberations, WHO is set to announce

its new chief Wednesday.

Contenders for WHO's top job include Dr. Margaret Chan, a bird flu

expert and former Hong Kong director of health, Dr. Shigeru Omi of

Japan, who heads WHO's Asia office, Mexican Health Minister Dr. Julio

Frenk, Spanish Health Minister Elena Salgado Mendez and Dr. Kazem

Behbehani, a veteran WHO official in Kuwait.

The United States has not declared a preference for any candidate.

Critics say the United States, WHO's largest donor, plays too large a

role behind the scenes. They argue that the Bush administration is

promoting the interests of its pharmaceutical industry _ at the

expense of poor AIDS patients who could be saved by cheap generic

medicines _ and has adopted an ideological line on issues like

abortion.

President Bush has made more money available for AIDS research than

any previous American leader, but that largesse has not extended to

programs in reproductive and sexual health. His administration has

also challenged ideologically charged WHO programs such as needle

exchanges and condom distribution.

U.S. officials deny they are seeking to force the administration's

health policies upon the world.

" We are not giving WHO money because we want to have influence, " said

Bill Hall, a spokesman for the U.S. Health and Human Services

Department. " We're doing this because we want to improve the human

condition around the world. "

Leading public health experts and senior WHO officials told The

Associated Press that Washington consistently interfered with policy

under the U.N. agency's last director-general, Dr. Lee Jong-Wook, who

died in May.

" The U.S. government has a direct role in every significant decision

made in Geneva, and even close to a veto role, " said Dr.

Horton, editor of the influential medical journal, The Lancet.

In one prominent case of alleged interference, the United States

requested the suppression of a book commissioned by WHO that

criticized U.S. free trade agreements for jeopardizing poor

countries' access to cheap medicines.

In a letter to WHO's acting director-general, a senior official from

the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said the

report " spuriously " characterized U.S. trade policy. WHO has yet to

make a decision on the U.S. demand.

" Standing up to the U.S. is not the easiest thing to do at the WHO, "

said Sisule Musungu, a Kenyan intellectual property specialist, who

co-authored the report with a former WHO staffer.

The episode sparked concern from two Democratic lawmakers, Sen.

Kennedy of Massachusetts and Rep. Henry Waxman of California,

who have called for an investigation into how American trade

agreements threaten the health of people in developing countries.

" Attempting to suppress a report because it is critical of U.S. trade

policy is unacceptable, " Kennedy wrote in a letter to Mike Leavitt,

Secretary of Health and Human Services.

In a widely reported episode in January, WHO's top official in

Thailand was stripped of his post after he said in an editorial that

a U.S.-Thai free trade agreement would jeopardize Thai access to

cheap drugs, leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of AIDS

patients.

" This was an example of an instance where there was probably pressure

from a certain member state, in this case the U.S., " said Dr. Tido

von Schoen-Angerer, of Medecins Sans Frontieres, which works closely

with WHO.

The United States denies it had anything to do with the transfer of

the official, Dr. Aldis, to the WHO's regional office in New

Delhi, India.

" We had no role in that, " said Hall of the Health and Human Services

Department. Though Hall says Washington formally complained to the

WHO about the editorial, he said no suggestions were made about

disciplining Aldis.

Pharmaceutical companies argue that allowing developing countries to

produce generic medicines may compromise their quality, endangering

the lives of the patients they are meant to treat and leading to

resistant strains of diseases.

The WHO's position has been that generic drugs are generally safe,

and that the advantages of using them in cases like Thailand outweigh

the relatively small risks.

Thailand has often been praised as a success story in its approach to

tackling AIDS _ producing cheap, generic versions of anti-

retrovirals. More than 80,000 people depend on these life-prolonging

treatments and AIDS deaths have dropped by nearly 80 percent in the

last decade.

Since the publication of Aldis' editorial, the Thailand-U.S. free

trade agreement has been stalled _ largely because of the attention

drawn to what the pact would do to Thailand's strategy on fighting

AIDS.

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Let's hope Bird flu expert Dr. Margaret Chan gets the job. We got to

get ready for the coming pandemic.