Bitter Pills:Medicines & The Third World Poor | Page 192

economic order, a movement which touches health care only incidentally, a
movement which has as its real goal the redistribution of wealth worldwide and
the seizure - by political force if necessary - of economic power by those with no
respect for the profit incentive and the rights of private property on which our
society is based." (124)
Similarly a few manufacturers have responded to OXFAM's enquiries about their
Third World policies and marketing practices by suggesting that these issues are
not of legitimate concern to a charity. For example, the Group Public Relations
Manager of Glaxo writes that "there must be considerable concern that your
activities as reflected in your letter to us, seem totally out of keeping with the
charitable objectives of OXFAM and more in keeping with those of a politically
oriented pressure group". (l25)
WE'VE PRODUCED THE GOODS...
Industry representatives often stress that manufacturers are doing all that can
reasonably be expected of them for the Third World and that the onus must fall
on governments to introduce new drug policies to ensure that the poor get the drugs
they need. The Director of the British industry-funded Office of Health Economics
has stated that "... the pharmaceutical firms have produced the goods. It is up to
the developing countries to introduce the primary health care schemes which can
make proper use of them - as China alone, so far, seems to have done." <126)
There is a great deal of truth in this statement as far as it goes. China, Mozambique,
Sri Lanka and other developing countries that have succeeded in making the best
use of limited resources to cater to the needs of the majority have done so because
they have had the political resolve to introduce effective primary health care cover
and comprehensive drug policies. But many developing countries have faced
concerted opposition to their attempts to introduce new drug policies, not least
from the drug industry itself. In the major drug-producing nations the degree
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