The Mexico Summit on Health Research 2004: Mexico agenda was informed by wide consultation

doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7488.421

BMJ 2005;330:421 (19 February), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7488.421

Letter

The Mexico Summit on Health Research 2004

Mexico agenda was informed by wide consultation

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Three issues raised by Abbasi in his editorialon the recently concluded Ministerial Summit on Health Researchin Mexico deserve comment.¹

Firstly, Abbasi laments the lack of translatable actions butdid not mention additional action items. These were relatedto a call to donors for more substantive support for healthsystems research, a call to governments to allocate a certainpercentage of national health expenditures to research, anda call to work more closely with countries to use evidence betterin health decision making.

Secondly, he was critical of the Mexico agenda, which he stateswas "drafted largely by representatives of the rich." It shouldbe pointed out that the development of the agenda was informedby wide ranging consultations and meetings in all WHO regionswhich involved researchers, policy makers, and non-governmentalorganisations. Ultimately, the agenda will be discussed at thegoverning bodies of the WHO where . . . [Full text of this article]

Tikki Pang, director, research policy and cooperation

World Health Organization, 1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland pangt@who.int