Zimbabwe health minister accuses WHO of capitulating to pharma companies

"WHO has become WHO Inc.," charged Zimbabwe’s Minister of Health and Child Welfare, Dr. Timothy Stamps, in a blistering attack on the World Health Organization. "It has now become a big business."

Stamps was articulating growing disenchantment of developing countries with what he called the WHO’s lack-lustre leadership in addressing their critical health problems, and the agency’s perceived domination by big pharmaceutical companies, he told Reuters Health in an interview on Friday.

Stamps was participating in a Technical Consultation in Cochin, southern India, which was organized by Partners in Population and Development and India’s Ministry of Health.

WHO was invited to attend the conference but was not present.

Partners in Population and Development is an intergovernmental alliance of 16 developing countries formed in 1994 to promote south-south cooperation in reproductive health and diseases associated with poverty. It includes countries like India, China, Pakistan, Mexico, Thailand, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

In separate working groups at the meeting, a number of developing countries and NGO representatives expressed what they called serious lack of faith on the part of WHO to address issues such as a lack of access to essential drugs and urgency in dealing with communicable diseases.

"Health has become tablets and vaccines and that’s what WHO is about now," Stamps told Reuters Health. "It is the failure to address the burden of disease in our countries which is the moral scandal in WHO."

"Despite their much talked about Roll Back Malaria [program], the main initiative there is only talking to big companies...about developing new drugs and drug combinations," he added.

Stamps accused WHO of pursuing discriminatory personnel policies. "WHO has systematically excluded undesirable directors who do not come from the right countries," Stamps said. "If you happen to come from Africa or South America or southeast Asia, unless you are an adherent to the Norwegian faith in the ultimate victory of markets over any other issue, you are excluded."

"You may be employed [by WHO] but you are put into areas which have no relevance to health," he added.

Representatives from WHO did not return phone calls seeking comment on Friday.