10 May It pays to invest in women and girl’s health

A continuación, mi intervención completa en WIP Women in Parliaments Global Forum del día 4 de mayo de 2016:

Since I took office in 2014, I have been involved in a wide range of issues related to my responsibilities in the European Parliament, through a number of Committees, namely Development and Humanitarian Aid, Human Rights, Women’s Rights and Equality, and Petitions.

In addition to these, I have been deeply involved in a wide range of right-to-health related topics, from access to sanitation to vaccines supply, but especially those regarding the current model of access to lifesaving medicines. This cross-cutting approach to some of the main challenges we are facing in politics nowadays has encouraged me to share my experience and thoughts today with such a distinguished audience.

Feet on the ground today, I will summarize it in one sentence: “It Pays to Invest in Women and Girls’s Health”

Why?

Because, when women and girls are healthy and educated, poverty and malnutrition decline, living standards improve and economic growth increases. When women and girls can participate in the employment, the enterprises and the whole productive economy, the benefits extend to their children, families, communities and nations. This is a fact, the proven positive ripple effect: investing in women’s health contributes directly to foster economic growth.

If the degree of gender inequality in a country has a direct impact on the health of women and girls, and we know that an inadequate access to full health care and services is a key barrier for women and girls’ progress… we can see clearly that economies can only flourish by abolishing gender inequality and investing equally in education and health irrespective of gender.

Because a woman’s health is a woman’s right. The promotion and protection of all human rights for all women means that they have access to services, are able to make decisions on their sexual needs, and are protected in relation to sexual rights as well as sexual orientation. When a woman experiences intimate partner violence and has limited access to sexual and reproductive health services and administration of justice, her individual options are severely limited.

If we can eradicate the abuses, seriously considering the political, economic and cultural factors that limit individual autonomy, choice and action of women and girls, we will make significant progress on the issues they face in relation to their health. And the economies will prosper.

Because being a man or a woman has a significant impact on health, as a result of biological, socioculturaland gender-related differences. While poverty is an important barrier to positive health outcomes for both men and women, poverty tends to yield a higher burden on women and girls’ health.

Because girls are the essential agents for change, the transformative power that will lead us to achieve the Agenda 2030 if we take the right decisions. And so they are in terms of health policy.
Complications from pregnancies and deliveries are one of the leading causes of death for girls aged 15 to 19, who should not be having babies in any case. Harmful practices such as FGM and early or child marriage contribute to this high mortality rate. Every day, more women and girls are also being infected by the Zika virus.

Reaching girls with information before they become sexually active can influence them in their school attendance, in their participation in income-generating activities, and likelihood of using sexual and reproductive health services.

Because women are crucial for a resilient health system, both as recipients of the service and as those who make the service viable. Health and social workers are primarily women, and productive and rewarding jobs in this sector will contribute to empowering women and to achieving inclusive, sustainable growth.

Let me give you one of the most overwhelming examples I was privileged to witness myself: During the Ebola crisis, women played critical roles as contact tracers and community mobilizers to prevent spread of the disease, even though they were at risk of infection.

Because there is not a more accurate instrument to achieve SDG 3: “Ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages” than women and girls, as proven most efficient agents for prevention and healing, through medicines, vaccines and sanitation. End preventable deaths of newborns, children and pregnant women; end epidemics such as AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria; guarantee broader access to healthcare, vaccines and medicines; end malnutrition; improve hygiene and sanitation and emergency response…

I will briefly stop for a moment on the issue of medicines and vaccines, as we have today the great opportunity of sharing this panel with one of the biggest Pharma companies in the world.

One could get the impression that industry’s marketing departments are delighted with public demands calling for health systems to pay exorbitant prices for their patented medicines. What ball game are we playing? It should definitely be the one for common goods and public health.

There is a total lack of transparency on the prices paid by governments for medicines. There is no public access or transparency regarding the clinical trials which test the efficacy and security of our medicines. We do not know how much has been invested in research nor do we have mechanisms to trace costs of production. A legislative effort should be undertaken to achieve transparency in industry’s investments in R&D as a process which would benefit both corporate public image and patients’ access to medicines.

International treaties also offer concrete instruments which could be easily put in use to favour cheap and affordable Hep C second generation DAAs. World Trade Organisation´s TRIPS, and its Doha Declaration interpretation offer more than enough flexibilities. Compulsory Licenses are a possible option for cases of public health emergencies. Such is the case in Spain, with an estimated 800.000 people infected with Hepatitis C.

We, the citizens, as tax payers, can get to have the feeling of being turned into hostages of pharma research by becoming kind of a high risk venture capitalists. Academic research, financed with public funds, is often picked up by private corporations which take advantage of these lines of research to develop their molecular compounds which are then patented and resold to the public for exorbitant prices. How does public investment benefit public good in such cases? What mechanisms do we have as citizens to trace our investments in the development of patented drugs?

Everybody agrees on pharma’s rights to profits, but the limits to pharma’s profits should be clearly outlined and defined by a few basic principles.

I clearly recon pharma´s risk taking position when undertaking research. Nevertheless, I encourage pharma companies to disclose clear figures on what percentage of their income is destined to R&D, as to other spheres of business, for example marketing. Once again we are confronted with a total lack of transparency. What´s the real average cost of developing a new drug?

This situation stresses the need of addressing the underlying structural factors which have brought us to the current situation. It all starts with a biomedical R&D model oriented at strengthening intellectual property monopolies and reaffirming exacerbated corporate profits over public interest and health. A cultural myth has prevailed which legitimises patent monopolies as the best incentive for R&D and drug development. This statement is deeply confusing and far from reality. The current system of biomedical R&D based on patent monopolies is really a handicap for research. Given the absolute lack of transparency in clinical trials, lines of research are often duplicated. Furthermore, pharma companies are more often focused on patent hunting and “evergreening” (applying minor changes in terms of innovation) their treatments for patent renewals than offering real added value drugs with proven therapeutic advantages.

Regarding monopolies, other fundamental spheres of our economic activities have been regulated, as, for example, the telecommunications sector. In this also strategic sector, efforts have been made to cap prices (see EU regulation on roaming), or to delink the pipeline process, meaning that one same enterprise cannot control the entire process: a single

telecommunications company is no longer allowed to be the builder of the infrastructure, owner of cables and towers, supplier, commercialise, advertise… all together.

There are specific and pragmatic alternatives to the current model. De-linkage in biomedical R&D would imply separating research and development costs from the final price of the medicine. This could be achieved through several instruments such as price incentives for open source medical research, patent pools, socially responsible licences, imposing strict conditions on the use and exploitation of public research by private corporations to assure a return for public interest, open access to scientific research developed and financed with public funds and transparency on trial results.

This is the nature of our parliamentary commitment as elected representatives serving public good, and furthermore, fully respective to article 168 of the TFEU stating “A high level of human health protection shall be insured in the definition and implementation of all Union policies and activities”.

Let me end saying that I feel fully committed to Dr Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General, when she states: “I regard universal health coverage as the single most powerful concept that public health has to offer. It is inclusive. It unifies services and delivers them in a comprehensive and integrated way, based on primary health care”

Universal health coverage is not also a key goal to achieve, but needs to be also the starting point for any cohesive strategy on health improvement in the world. And so it needs to be for the SDGs and our common Agenda 2030.

I think we can also agree that a crucial fact needs to be added: all SDGs must deliver for gender equality and women’s empowerment. Gender equality is the truly universally applicable component of the 2030 Agenda. It is where every country needs to step up and make this aspiration the reality of our time.

As Ms Puri, UN Women Deputy Executive Director, recently said on this: “As a comprehensive, inclusive and universal development framework for action, the 2030 Agenda must be our inspiration, and Civil society is called to harvest the gender equality compact across sustainable development, human rights, peace and security and the humanitarian commitments to advance its critical work”. This is for me the paramount prospective.

Because, and I conclude with this, we are living the first time ever that so much emphasis has been placed on ACCELERATION and creating change in ONE generation. This emphasis is a clear signal that the 2030 Agenda is the ultimate challenge.

It is time for the world, our world, to FAST FORWARD. And that is why we, women in politics, are here in Jordan pressing that button with our strongest determination.
Thank you very much.

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