ITALIAN MINISTER OF HEALTH INVITATION TO EXPAND

UNCLAS ROME 000494 SIPDIS DHHS FOR OFFICE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS STATE FOR OES/IHA STATE FOR OES/STC (V.COX) STATE FOR EUR/WE (ADAMS/FETCHKO) E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: TBIO SOCI IT SUBJECT: ITALIAN MINISTER OF HEALTH INVITATION TO EXPAND BILATERAL MOU ON HEALTH AND MEDICAL SCIENCES REF: ROME 000492 ¶1. The Embassy has received a copy of a February 11, 2005 letter sent from Italian Minister of Health Girolamo Sirchia to HHS Secretary Leavitt proposing to expand the bilateral MOU on Health and Medical Sciences (2003) to include cooperation on obesity, diabetes, and complementary and alternative medicine. Sirchia also invites Secretary Leavitt to visit Italy. Text of Sirchia's letter, which is in English, is in para 2. ¶2. BEGIN TEXT OF SIRCHIA LETTER TO SECRETARY LEAVITT: Dear Secretary, First of all I would like to warmly congratulate you for your recent appointment as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. It would be a great pleasure for me to have an opportunity to meet you in the next (sic near) future to discuss with you issues of common interest and future collaborations between the U.S.A. and Italy in the health sector. I sincerely hope that your appointment will make possible to strengthen and further develop the fruitful collaboration between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Italian Ministry of Health, started with your predecessor, Mr. Tommy Thompson, particularly on oncology, rare diseases and bioterrorism in the framework of the Memorandum of Understanding in the area of Health and Medical Sciences, signed in Rome on 17 April 2003. As I consider this scientific collaboration very important, I would like to further expand it to include the following subjects: obesity, diabetes (both in adults and children),and Complementary and Alternative Medicine. It seems to me that, in case you are in favor of such a proposal, this could be easily implemented by means of an "Addendum" to the Technical Annex to the above mentioned Memorandum, signed on 23 June 2003 in Washington, D.C. (see Annex 1). To make possible a first exchange of viewpoints and, possibly, the signature of the above-mentioned "Addendum" to the Technical Annex, I am pleased to invite you to visit Italy at your earliest convenience. In case your engagements would make (it) difficult for you to accept my invitation in the short term and you will be attending the WHO Assembly during the week of May 2005, we could also organize a meeting at the margin of the Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland. I would like to take this opportunity to convey to you my sentiments of esteem and friendship. - // SS // - Prof. Girolamo Sirchia, MD, FRCP, Edin END TEXT OF LETTER ¶3. COMMENT: As reported in reftel, Minister Sirchia has recently been accused in the Italian press of receiving payments for consulting fees from an American company that supplies blood testing equipment. The same company is also accused of paying kickbacks to other Italian doctors in exchange for contracts. The incidents supposedly occurred in 1999-2000, before Sirchia became minister. Minister Sirchia has flatly denied the allegations. END COMMENT. SEMBLER NNNN 2005ROME00494 - Classification: UNCLASSIFIED