Intended for healthcare professionals

Rapid response to:

Feature Non-Communicable Diseases

Will industry influence derail UN summit?

BMJ 2011; 343 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.d5328 (Published 23 August 2011) Cite this as: BMJ 2011;343:d5328

Rapid Response:

Something will surely come out.

This report by Deborah Cohen on the politics and influences behind
the story is to the point in worrying if anything valuable will be agreed.
For the governments and donors on the consumer sides, agreements may be
real problem unless the investigations and drugs having no impact or
negative impact on the CURE RATE of the relevant disease(S) are not
prohibited or at least restricted. Industry including private medical
practice being commercially oriented may press for continued
experimentation and evidence irrespective of impact on cure rate.
Hopefully something will surely come out on chronic non-infective diseases
which often have underlying unread infective and in-festive basis too.

Competing interests: No competing interests

28 August 2011
Mohammed Naim
Professor, Pathology
JNMC, AMU, Aligarh, India