THAI HEALTH MINISTER TO VISIT WASHINGTON

UNCLAS BANGKOK 002045

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SENSITIVE

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E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ECON PGOV PHUM PREL TH
SUBJECT: THAI HEALTH MINISTER TO VISIT WASHINGTON


SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED HANDLE ACCORDINGLY


1. (SBU) Summary. The proposed visit of Health Minister Mongkol Na
Songkhla to Washington provides the USG the opportunity to engage
with perhaps the most high profile member of the current Thai
cabinet in terms of driving his agenda forward. As judged by recent
polls, he is clearly the most popular minister among Thai people -
supported by NGOs and the press - for his "principled" stand in
"taking on" on the multinational pharmaceutical companies in order
to provide better health care to poor Thais. Meetings with senior
USG officials could be used to try and alter the "us vs. them"
attitude of Mongkol and his team and remind them of our long
cooperation in the field of health. End Summary.


2. (SBU) Health Minister Mongkol is planning to visit Washington at
the suggestion of the North America department at the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. The MFA hopes that the minister's outreach efforts
will improve Thailand's image, which was battered by Mongkol's
decision to issue compulsory licenses on several pharmaceutical
products, including two made by U.S. companies.


3. (SBU) During a recent visit to Thailand, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
officials led by Senior Vice President for International Affairs,
Dan Christman, encouraged the concept of a visit by Mongkol as a
means to expose the minister to other points of view. Mongkol has
spent his entire career as a provincial health official and
bureaucrat at the Health Ministry. His only significant time abroad
was the year he spent in Netherlands (1982) getting a master's
degree in public health. In the cloistered atmosphere of the
Ministry, Mongkol is influenced by NGOs and health advocates who
support his actions, and access to alternative views is limited.
Mongkol's experience is one of a constant battle for budget in which
failure has resulted in lack of treatment for Thais. However, Dr.
Suwit Wibulpolprasert, one of the Ministry's leading supporters of
compulsory licensing, told us the Minister knows that it is
important to listen to alternative views.


4. (SBU) One of Embassy's leading points on the compulsory license
issue has been the necessity for consultations with stakeholders and
interested parties before taking drastic actions as Thailand has
done. Mongkol appears to be interested in now doing exactly that:
consulting and discussing with U.S. policymakers on future policy
decisions. A U.S. visit would give Mongkol an opportunity to hear
views from fellow health officials whose opinions he would respect,
rather than solely from foreign business, whose opinions he has
already discounted to a large degree.


5. (SBU) Prime Minister Surayud has promised the Ambassador that no
new compulsory licenses will be issued. While we have confidence in
Surayud, his tenure will be short-lived. Given Mongkol's popularity,
we need to bring him around to another approach to better assure
that a new government doesn't pursue Mongol's previous approach to
CLs.


6. (SBU) The debate on compulsory licenses in Thailand has become
polarized, focusing on a distinction between the health of patients
and the profits of corporations. The larger dilemma of providing
first rate health care in developing nations and the myriad issues
surrounding it has been lost. Embassy would like to use this visit
to begin a larger discussion of health economics in Thailand and
globally, and ways that health care infrastructure can be improved
to make drastic measures such as compulsory licenses unnecessary.
Boyce