In France, faced with the shortage of certain drugs, such as paracetamol or amoxicillin, the Senate set up a commission of inquiry in early February 2023 to understand the origin of the difficulties in accessing treatment.
This week, the co-founders of the Observatory of transparency in drug policies (OTMeds) were heard, but the senators remained deaf to several of their main concerns, citing economic logic. It’s a fight thatOTMeds has been doing for a long time: taking health out of an economic model based on supply and demand, and demanding details on the real prices of treatments.
” Logical that we can have information »
But when Jérôme Martin, from the Observatory for Transparency in Medicines Policies, explains it to the Senatethe elected officials who question him are not of the same opinion: “ It should be logical that we can have information on the real cost of production, on the public aid that manufacturers have received, on the margins that they make on drugs, as well as on intermediaries. And when we talk about that, when we talk about public production, we can clearly see that there is a kind of ideological reflex on the part of certain political families, unfortunately “.
” If we annoy our researchers too much, we risk scaring them away »
His speech goes so far as to shock Senator Les Républicains Pascale Gruny. Being transparent about production costs means giving a hand, according to her, to the competition. His colleague, Bruno Belin, is also worried: ” If we annoy our researchers too much, we risk scaring them away “. Arguments difficult to hear for activists who defend fair access to health, far from the logic of the market.
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