QUESTION: World Health Organization

question / pregunta: 

Hi. I'm interested in Web resources on the connection between the World Health Organization and the pharmaceuticals industry.

Answers


Answer posted by:
pumpedlibrarian
  • Showing the connection between the World Health Organization and the pharmaceutical industry, first, there is the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on Pharmaceutical Policy. This site/center describes itself as:

    "The CCPP conducts pharmaceutical policy training courses in the US and abroad; trains fellows in pharmaceutical policy research; works with WHO and other international partners on joint research initiatives to improve use of medicines; develops interventions for medicines-related policy and behavior change and methods to evaluate their impact; and provides a global forum for exchanging research results and identifying new issues in the field. One important initiative of the Center is the development and regional implementation of a training courses on use of prescribing and dispensing data for medicines policy research to strengthen urgently needed skills of managers and analysts of the rapidly expanding government and private insurance programs in many non-industrialized countries."


  • Effect Measure is "a forum for progressive public health discussion and argument as well as a source of public health information from around the web that interests the editor(s)." They have a primer on the WHO and the WHO's connection to big pharma.

  • Smith, RD, Correa, C, & Oh, C. (2009). Trade, TRIPS, and pharmaceuticals, Lancet 317(9664), 684-91. [PMID: 19167054]

    This article, accessed via PubMed discusses:

    "The World Trade Organization's Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) set global minimum standards for the protection of intellectual property, substantially increasing and expanding intellectual-property rights, and generated clear gains for the pharmaceutical industry and the developed world."


  • This is a factsheet on TRIPS from the World Trade Organization (2006)...

  • Barton, John H. (2004). TRIPS and the global pharmaceutical market. Health Affairs, 23(3), 146-154. [doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.23.3.146]
    This paper explains the connection between TRIPS (from WHO) and big pharma, and evolution of the debate.

  • Here is a great page, continuing with TRIPS, from the International People's Health University. It discusses the issue and provides many more resources for further reading.

Hopefully, that gets you off to a good start!