New Mandala

19 responses so far ↓

• 1 Jon Fernquest // May 9, 2007 at 4:47 pm

  Obvious questions:

  Who is the audience?
  What is the purpose of the conference?
  Where is the website?
  Who is paying for it?
  Who is organising it?
  Will they publish conference papers?

  Why isn’t Big Pharma invited? They are effectively the proxy US state department vis-a-vis Thailand nowadays, much as the US military assumed this role in Ira, e.g.

  And the proxies for Big Pharma, the PR firms, law firms, and the fake NGO “USA for Innovation” that have been engaging in Thailand bashing recently under the cover of working independently, e.g. http://www.thailies.com/

  The actions of the USTR and these unofficial organisations are highly correlated, yet not officially connected:
  http://www.readbangkokpost.com/business/healthcare_industry/intellectual_property_or_savin_3.php

  Thanks for this posting. Without any clues to its existence on the internet, it would have slipped right past most peoples’ radar.

• 2 Lleij Schwartz // May 9, 2007 at 6:50 pm

  Jon F.> “Thailand bashing”? Puh-leez. *rolls eyes*

  The definition of [insert-country-here]-bashing would be a series of ad hominem and tu quoque arguements which would be based on percieved national stereotypes (cf. the Japan-bashing of the early 1980’s). Whereas, the Japan/American bashing was based on racism and xenophobia; this so-called Thailand bashing is based on reasoned, legalistic arguments against certain policies of Thailand’s government. You can feel free to agree or disagree, but I feel it to be a tad hysterical to call this lobbying “Thailand bashing”. (BTW, just what makes an NGO “real” or not?)

  In short, the difference between bashing and reasoned criticism is this:

  Bashing: “Well, if Thailand actually did something about your prostitution problem, then you wouldn’t have an HIV/AIDS epidemic in the first place!”

  Criticism: “Thailand’s complusory licensing violates WTO agreements that Thailand is a party to.”

  Get it?

  p.s. OK, step right up and place your bets! It’s currently 3:1 that “Dr.” Sittichai’s i-Thugs will block access to the ThaiMyths.com website within the month. It’s 104:1 that the rationale for this will be “insulting the Monarchy,” 4:1 for “hurting national unity,” 2:1 for “endangering national security,” and 17:1 for “the website hurts Gen. Prem’s feelings.”

• 3 Jon Fernquest // May 9, 2007 at 10:49 pm

  “bash” means “criticize severely in a public way”

  “bash Thailand” means “criticize Thailand severely in a public way”

  The name Thailies.com is Thailand bashing.

  Some of their “myths” are just plain stupid, such as:

  “Thailand is a poor country and cannot afford Western medicines.” Yes, it is.

  Look up Gini coefficient and inequality.

  Most people in the rural neighborhood I am familiar with in Chiang Rai earn no more than 2 to 4,000 baht.

  > What makes an NGO “real” or not?

  That it doesn’t just pop up conveniently and mysteriously when a major multinational corporation needs it.

• 4 Srithanonchai // May 10, 2007 at 1:22 am

  “Poor” is rather relative. Thailand doesn’t look like Laos or Cambodia. There is also no urgent need to prepare for the next famine in the Silom area or elsewhere in Thailand. Thailand has earned so much money that it was able to substantially reduce the poverty rate (to about 8%, if I remember correctly). I wonder how much medicine could have been bought with the money uselessly spent on the aircraft carrier or for the military coup, for that matter. Thailand is also rich enough to afford that a great degree of the annual budget is corrupted and wasted by inefficiency.

• 5 Lleij Schwartz // May 10, 2007 at 3:01 am

  I can’t say that I agree with your definition of “bash,” Jon. To me, the word “bash” has connotations of irrationality and agressiveness, and while I don’t necessarily agree with USA for Innovation’s arguments, I don’t find them to be irrational nor overtly agressive. The same cannot be said of Jon Ungpakorn’s hysterical ramblings.

  To equate any sort of criticism with a negative connotation is…well, very Asian. But let’s stop arguing semantics, shall we?

  I do believe that intellectual property laws have been abused by many, many corporations in many, many industries; however, I don’t think intellectual property theft is the answer. I remember my mother teaching me something about how “two wrongs don’t make a right.”

  I must admit that I am confused about this statement:
  “Thailand is a poor country and cannot afford Western medicines.” Yes, it is.
  Look up Gini coefficient and inequality.
  Most people in the rural neighborhood I am familiar with in Chiang Rai earn no more than 2 to 4,000 baht.

  I looked up the Gini coefficients of both Thailand and the United States. According the the US Census Bureau, as of 2005, the Gini coefficient for US families and households was 0.469. According to the National Statistical Office of Thailand, for the year 2005, the Gini coefficient for Thai families and households was 0.433.

  If I understand correctly, that means the United States experiences greater economic inequality than Thailand. Perhaps this is due to uninsured, middle-class American families subsidizing cheap, compulsorily licenced drugs for “developing” countries, like Thailand, though the higher costs of medicines in the United States. (Hey, the Pharma companies need to make up some of the loss somehow.)

  As for NGOs, I will refrain from further discussion, as any statement I’m likely to make will be shaded by my irrational and agressive hatred for anything connected to the UN.

• 6 nganadeeleg // May 10, 2007 at 9:16 am

  Real NGO or not, it’s clearly a lobbying group involved in a lobbying war. Abbott seems to have picked an easy target to try to improve it’s sullied reputation (see http://www.abbottsgreed.com)

  I agree with Bill Clinton that it’s a ‘life or death’ matter.
  Hopefully some good will come out of it because clearly the Big Pharma patent protection model is failing to deliver, and a new more effective and equitable model for medical research needs to be developed.

• 7 Srithanonchai // May 10, 2007 at 3:45 pm

  “and a new more effective and equitable model for medical research needs to be developed.” >> Good luck, and this would certainly not involve the state bureaucracy, right?

• 8 nganadeeleg // May 10, 2007 at 7:04 pm

  Srithanonchai: Good suggestion - at least it would save on Advertising & CEO expenses which could then be put into lower prices or more research.
  Why not reward the researchers and the patients rather than CEO’s, marketing guru’s and shareholders?

• 9 Republican // May 10, 2007 at 8:14 pm

  Because if you do not reward shareholders you have no capital to develop new drugs; if you do not reward CEOs you have no companies to manage R & D, and if you do not reward the marketing people you can’t get your drugs to market. That is, if you do not reward these people the patients will die. It’s all very nice to get on your high moral horse but the fact is that these drugs do not appear out of thin air, but are a product of the capitalist free market system.

• 10 nganadeeleg // May 10, 2007 at 8:50 pm

  Not surprised to see that we again disagree, Republican.
  We are talking about peoples lives here - why does there always have to be a profit motive?
  Why would life saving drugs need to be marketed?
  What sort of investment return is required to fund life saving reseach? Ever heard of philanthropy or public goods?
  If a return on funds is required, one alternative to the Big Pharma model could be a government backed bonds funding independent researchers - at least that way the CEO, marketing & lobbying leeches could be cut out of the system, enabling the research to be more focused on needs rather than what will produce the larger profit.
  (That’s just off the top of my head today - I’m sure there are many other alternatives to the ‘capitalist free market system’ which so clearly fails to meet the needs of the poor)

• 11 Taxi Driver // May 10, 2007 at 10:11 pm

  BigPharma are not known for their charity, but I also understand the importance of patent protection.

  Drug research & development is a hughly expensive and risky (in terms of potential return on investment) exercise. Just 1 out of every 1,000 compound considered as a drug candidate makes it into human clinical trials, and only 1 in 5 of the drugs that enter human trials eventually become an FDA approved medication. The average drug takes 15 years of development to get to market, and costs up to US$500M per drug to get it there. Once a drug is discovered & approved for marketed, it costs less than 50 cents a tablet to manufacture (i.e. anyone can manufacture & sell a tablet if the formula is known). This is why patent protection is necessary (the average patent lasts 13 years). Without the promise of patent protection, no one (either private or public sector) would embark on a drug development project and no drugs will ever get developed.

  Breaking patents is a dangerous path to take. It drives up the cost of capital and can reduce the number of new drugs that otherwise would be develop (e.g. cure for AIDS, cure for cancer). I don’t profess to know what the solution is for getting cheap drugs to the poor, but breaking patents should be the last resort.

• 12 nganadeeleg // May 10, 2007 at 10:46 pm

  Taxi Driver: It’s not patents that are the problem, but rather what return on investment is required. The return demanded by Big Pharma corporations means they are motivated by making profits, not saving lives (and that required return is after highly paid CEO’s marketers & lobbyists have taken their cut)

• 13 Jon Fernquest // May 10, 2007 at 11:06 pm

  Like former US President Clinton said yesterday:

  ‘‘No company will live or die because of high price premiums for Aids drugs in middle-income countries, but patients may’’

  Clinton is a hero and Dr Mongkol, maybe he should have tried to negotiate first, even though Abbott Labs is notoriously difficult to negotiate, and it certainly ooks bad when two ministries in the same government have a different policy stance on the same issue. Where did the leadership go?

  The US Supreme court took the first step this week to weakening patents which are getting pretty ridiculous, particularly in the software industry, professors like computer scientist Knuth at Stanford being highly critical of them.

  But there are a lot less controversial IP issues than pharmaceuticals that just disappear, like the JD Pools case, their inventory of pools seized when Thaksin was still Prime Minister. They are back in operation, but if they did steal the French pool company’s IP then will other similar foreign companies come to Thailand in the future?

  http://www.readbangkokpost.com/business/intellectual_property/intellectual_property_or_techn.php

• 14 Srithanonchai // May 10, 2007 at 11:43 pm

  Has anybody noticed that we do not live in an economy that is centrally administered by state? This is not about big pharma, but about how our economy works. I have as little right to medicine as I have the right to a car (although I feel the need to have individual transportation) or a book (although I work academically and need it; Ingenta Connect also wants $35 for an article). And if I am hungry, there is no restaurant that will serve me without me being able to pay for my meal. You can introduce what Luhmann called “third values.” But you must be able to translate it into the availability of money. Of course, one can also destroy the advantages of functional differentiation. However, this will–as the examples show–make us worse off, not better of.

• 15 New Mandala » More on patents and capitalism // May 11, 2007 at 12:40 am

  [...] Mandala readers keen to follow different arguments on the current patent brawl will find contributions from two of the Thailand-focussed blogs particularly [...]

• 16 Taxi Driver // May 11, 2007 at 12:47 am

  Ngarn, your point about what return on investment is required is a good one to ask, but in a capitalist economy the answer has always been “as much as possible”.

  The recent trend for corporations to become socially and environmentally responsible is a positive and welcome development. Perhaps BigPharma will catch on to this trend and try to outdo each other in their quest to become the best corporate citizen saving the world’s poor…., but that is probably wishful thinking just like thinking the Junta staged the coup to protect democracy.

• 17 Andrew Walker // May 11, 2007 at 4:04 pm

  From the TLC list:

  Dear All,

  I am just returning from the “Conference on Thailand-U.S. Relations” organized by the Thai Embassy in Washington DC. While I will not offer my views on individual papers. There were many very good ones. This conference drew participation by members of the Thai Studies program at Georgetown, the Bank
  of Thailand, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Thai Ministry of Commerce, the Prajadhipok Institute, the US Department of Commerce, the US Department of Defense, Chulalongkorn University, Thammasat University, Ramkhamhaeng University, the US Department of State, the Asia Foundation, and well as scholars from Northern Illinois University, Cornell, SAIS, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USC, UCR, and the University of Oregon. I thought those interested in Thai-U.S. relations, trade treaties, political relations, etc. might be interested in the itinerary, topics, and list of speakers. I took detailed notes and I am perfectly happy to talk with people off list about the conference talks. Thanks,
  justin [McDaniel].

• 18 Republican // May 11, 2007 at 6:16 pm

  Can we invite Justin to post us a summary of the conference from his detailed notes on this blog so we can debate some of the issues in a slightly freer environment than one with the Thai Embassy overseeing proceedings?

• 19 New Mandala » ‘Buddhism and Science’ conference at Mahidol // May 22, 2007 at 8:11 pm

  [...] that Andrew and I remain keenly interested in the various Thailand-related scholarly and activist meetings that are going on around the world.  Tomorrow, the “Thailand after the coup” [...]

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