THE LIFE of great leaders
Revista Estilo de Vida
Germán Velásquez, the former WHO official fighting for universal health
Germán Velázquez, a native from Manizales, has carried out missions ranging from the democratization of medicines to the non-privatization of the UN’s global agency.
Interview: Claudia M. Gómez – directora@revistaestilodevida.co
Magazine Estilo de Vida by Claudia M. Gómez – Writing: Pilar Bolivar – Photo: Germán Velázquez
In an estate built more than a century ago in the town closest to Geneva, Switzerland, there lives a Colombian who has so far held the highest position in the World Health Organization. Today, along with his wife -his partner and ally-, his four children and his exquisite library (which, in addition to his doctoral thesis on economics at the Sorbonne, his WHO Red Book on copyright patent exceptions and his honorary investiture granted in 2015 by the School of Medicine at Madrid’s Complutense University, preserves some pre-Columbian guacas), Germán Velásquez continues his tireless fight for access to universal health.
Magazine Estilo de Vida by Claudia M. Gómez – Photo: Germán Velázquez
He has been doing it for a decade as an analyst, having served as Coordinator of the Medicines Program at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, and now serving as Special Adviser on Policy and Health at South Center, an intergovernmental organization based in the Swiss capital that advises 54 developing countries. “I spent 20 years at the WHO; I left 10 years ago, and in my current position, half of my job is to track what’s going on at the WHO, so now I know it inside out even more than when I used to work there”, said Velazquez with his strong Manizales accent, who is also a philosopher from the Javeriana University and defines himself as a “child pampered by life,” by having gotten his battles not only to cause blisters in the global governments and health systems, but also to have guided him throughout a career that he “modestly acknowledges, has been quite successful and brilliant”, claims the health ‘Robin Hood’ who has been a victim of intimidation for defending his ideals and the fundamental human rights.
Magazine Estilo de Vida by Claudia M. Gómez
– CLAUDIA M GÓMEZ: How has that skillful combination of philosophy and economics served health?
GERMÁN VELÁSQUEZ: When I finished philosophy, I was thinking of going to Europe to study a master’s degree in political science. When I realized that I had a diploma in philosophy from the Javeriana University and that if I would have combined it with political science I was going to die of hunger because I wouldn’t get a job, then my friends advised me to study economics.
I pursued a master’s degree in economics at the Sorbonne and then looked for work. By chance of life I found one in a pharmaceutical company in Indonesia; then they transferred me to Belgium and then to Switzerland (Lugano), and during those three years with that american pharmaceutical company, I realized a series of aberrations regarding pharmaceutical industry practices. I discovered with surprise and pain, that it was not an industry at the health service, but rather at the service of particular benefits and with commercial interests over public health.
– CMG: Hence your Masters’ thesis at the Sorbonne on the pharmaceutical industry?
GV: Yes; I decided to leave that pharmaceutical company so that, with that 3-year experience, I could undertake a doctorate at the Sorbonne. When I withdrew, I met who my wife is today; she was going to do a thesis in anthropology in Mozambique and told me to go with her, but I said, ‘if you find me a job, I will go with you’, and she had the opportunity to see the Minister of Health of Mozambique at a conference he gave in Paris, after which he said: ‘I need someone who can advise me to build a pharmaceutical industry’ and Christine (my wife) came up to him and told him about me.
The minister told her to send him my curriculum and after a week, when I was 25 years old, I was the Private Counselor of the Minister of Health of Mozambique. While working, I also continued with my thesis at the Sorbonne, and after three and a half years I went to Paris to present it, being one of the first papers published in France with a review on the pharmaceutical industry.
It was titled The Medicine Industry and the Third World. I presented it and substantiated at the Sorbonne, and for its quality, it was published by a well-known French publishing house. I went back to Mozambique and after a month I was called by Christine’s parents to tell me that there was a half-page article about my book in Le Monde newspaper; it was no less than a review by Alfred Sauvy, who explained that it was a high-quality book, giving it a lot of praise. Ever since then, I have never had to look for a job, and I’ve always been offered job offers. That’s why I’ve been a spoiled child.
Magazine Estilo de Vida by Claudia M. Gómez – Photo: Germán Velázquez – Institutions related to GV: www.sorbonne-universite.fr – www.who.int – www.southcentre.int – www.javeriana.edu.co – www.ucm.es – Invima Colombia
– CMG: And how did you get to the WHO?
GV: After three years in Mozambique, I received a job offer from the WHO and another one from the European Union; the latter seemed interesting to me because it was a project in Mali about restructuring the pharmaceutical sector. I wanted to stay in Africa, as I came from working in Mozambique, a country that had recently become independent from Portugal, but now I was going to a Francophone country at the other end of the continent. I was there three years during the 1990s, and while I was working in Mali, the Colombian health minister at the time knew about me – perhaps from the book or from someone who told him about me, I think a friend, Mauricio Trujillo Restrepo.
One day, I received a message from the WHO saying that the Colombia’s Health Minister had requested that I evaluate the country’s drug system. When I saw this with my wife (who loves Colombia), we decided to leave Mali for this five-month mission in Colombia consisting of reviewing the medicine supply system together with the National Health Institute, the Invima and the Ministry of Health. I did the report that was well received, and the WHO liked it so much that it called me to work there.
– CMG: And this is how your career began at the UN Health Agency?
GV: Yes; I was given a position in which I would basically be responsible for the WHO drug program in Latin America; my wife told me to accept the position as long as it was in any Latin American country, because if we were to have children someday (which we did), she did not want to raise them up under the Swiss system, then I stated that condition; that took place 30 years ago, and since then I never left the WHO again. I was the director of the drug program, and for the last seven or eight years that I was at the WHO, I was the director of a secretariat on public health and intellectual property from the WHO directorate-general office. I got to a pretty high position.
Magazine Estilo de Vida by Claudia M. Gómez
– CMG: And during your latter position, did you receive intimidation and threats?
GV: Yes, during the last few years I had attacks that started in Rio de Janeiro; I was at the Ministry of Health giving some lectures, and at night when I left the hotel, two young men grabbed me and cut off my watch (Swatch-brand with no value); they also took away the blazer I was wearing and no more. I was close to the hotel and walked in very quickly; I didn’t get scared because I thought it was a robbery, as it could happen to anyone in Rio, Sao Paulo or in any other city. I was more concerned about the blood that was falling on a nice mat that was at the hotel entrance than for what just had happened to me. I went to a hospital to be taken care of, and the next day I traveled to Miami where I would have a very important meeting for the WHO restructuring, which had been scheduled by the then-incoming director WHO was also the former Norwegian Prime Minister, Gro Harlem Brundtland (she was the Director General from 1998 to 2003).
I arrived the day before, checked in at the hotel and went to a restaurant for dinner; coming out of there, two adults cornered me at the entrance of a building, kicked me and put a gun on my neck saying to me: ‘we expect you have understood the lesson you were taught in Rio de Janeiro and stop criticizing the pharmaceutical industry’. Rio’s incident had happened almost 24 hours before, so I realized there was something set up.
– CMG: What did they tell you at the WHO?
GV: The WHO took a rather absurd attitude, but after several years I clearly understood it; they told me to be quiet and totally secretive. I didn’t think it was reasonable but understood they wanted to avoid an outrage. Then I received a series of phone intimidations and asked to intercept my phone, for which I had to request an authorization from the French Ministry of Interior, which in turn requested an investigation that lasted more than a year. Upon returning to Geneva, the Director-General offered me to change my position to one of the same or even higher level in order to protect me. I told them: “don’t think about changing my job to a different one after I have invested more than 20 years of my life in the fight for medicines”. I was then given security conditions, among them, to always travel with bodyguards.
– CMG: Have you always been supported by the WHO?
GV: I was aware they were threats to intimidate me and wouldn’t kill me; however, all the outrage around gave a lot of visibility to the work I was doing and what the WHO was doing in that field, and for that reason there was a lot of support from the organization. There. were even several attempts by the United States Government (pushed by the pharmaceutical industry) to get me out of the WHO. That director always supported me, but then other directors that came along thought Velasquez was too inconvenient for the WHO, and when there were plans to change my position, countries like China, Brazil and Indonesia and the South African region always supported me.
– CMG: Why did governments decide on behalf of the WHO?
GV: The WHO is an intergovernmental body, a UN agency that belongs to the countries, it is like the ministry of health of the world and as such, it should be financed by public funds, by the governments.
Magazine Estilo de Vida by Claudia M. Gómez
– CMG: But WHO is known to receive private donations
GV: Since its founding in 1948, this agency has been 100 percent dependent on mandatory contributions from the 194 member countries. In recent years, far less than 20 percent (some say as much as 12 percent) consists of countries’ mandatory public contributions, and the rest is private sector money resulting from non-regular, non-mandatory but rather voluntary contributions. That is, countries like England, France, the United States and many Nordic countries give their mandatory public share from the regular budget, but on top of that they give millions of dollars that they claim are voluntary to be used in some program.
– CMG: Does that mean that by giving such large donations they make decisions?
GV: You are absolutely right. The first decision they want is that the money be invested in what they want, and if the contribution is very important, they order an advisory committee or a body to give advice to the program to which they give so much money, and thus they take ideological and political control of the program. The last thing is that the WHO’s second donor is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
– CMG: Given that it is the second largest donor, how does Bill Gates influence the WHO?
GV: There is a risk that it will be the first one, since the United States announced they will withdraw, and if their withdrawal is confirmed, the first major donor would be Bill Gates. WHO has several scientific committees: the policy maker for the fight against AIDS, the committee for the fight against malaria, etc.; and Gates, because he wants to be on all technical committees for investing so much money, he also wants to get involved as an observer, other times he asks for the right to speak, and in other committees he is given the right to vote.
Magazine Estilo de Vida by Claudia M. Gómez – Photo: Germán Velázquez
– CMG: Does he decide on the medicines to be prescribed to patients worldwide?
GV: Of course, even representatives of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are on the committees that make decisions and create health policies; so, he can decide which drugs are going to start taking hypertensive patients; although there is a technical committee of experts who study and make these decisions, Bill and Melinda Gates also give their opinion. And if they and their representatives, as can and does happen (because they don’t have the money under the mattress but in the real world, in the pharmaceutical and food industry), recommend worldwide that for some disease a certain medication be consumed and/or prescribed, a brutal conflict of interest arises because they will tip the balance in their favor, recommending a medication from some firm where they have shares, that is, if sales rise astronomically, they also get more money. The independence of the WHO recommendations and regulations on public health at the global level is being lost for commercial, financial and economic reasons.
– CMG: Some Italian doctors (specifically a doctor from Florence, Italy) claim. That Bill Gates in partnership with the WHO in recent years has manipulated several patents on medical devices that can help in public health. What do you know about this regard?
GV: Since he is the richest man in the world, he manages to make financial and copyright-protection manipulations from which he can get some profit; for example, a small company, a small laboratory is developing a medicine that could be very interesting, and since he is the richest man in the world, he goes ahead and buys the laboratory, launches the product and becomes more millionaire.
But Bill and Melinda Gates are not the only example, and there is another recent case. A drug that can cure Hepatitis C -with which 70 million people in the world are sick- called Sofosbuvit, intended to cure a patient with a 3-month treatment, was being developed by a small American pharmaceutical industry.
They had not yet produced the medicine but through espionage, another American firm (Gilead, the one that swindled us
by selling to us the Tamiflú drug to treat the AH1N1 flu) bought the entire laboratory because it knew that this potentially curative drug was on the list of things they were researching. They bought, developed the product and launched it on the market for a value worth 84 thousand dollars the treatment to cure Hepatitis C, when the production costs of the 3-month treatment were only 100 dollars.
Magazine Estilo de Vida by Claudia M. Gómez
– CMG: I understand they don’t just tamper drug patents. I’m aware of the case of an Italian doctor who invested 8 million euros in a medical device for birth safety, helping uterine contractions without causing harm to mother and baby and eliminating KRISTELLER MANEUVER, but when it was to be launched on the market, something happened with the WHO and Bill Gates, and the development of the medical device was halted.
GV: We could go further; I know the pharmaceutical industry issue because it has been my field, but if you think, for example, of the food industry, the drama is even worse; the lobbies and pressures are gigantic, and the WHO would be supposed to bring out regulations for the use of additives, colorants and sugar in food, but the industry is opposed because if the agency orders that soft drinks must have much less sugar than they actually do, they would be less addictive and sales would go down. It’s another battle the WHO lost. Even the food industry is more powerful than the pharmaceutical one. And the worst thing is that Bill and Melinda Gates also have their money in the food industry, surely, they may have shares in McDonald’s and Coca Cola, and these ‘unhealthy’ industries are financing the WHO thus creating a conflict of interest.
– CMG: In your opinion, how do you think the WHO is handling the health crisis unleashed by COVID-19?
GV: Their attempt to manage it has been very interesting. The tragedy is that no one is listening to them and countries are doing whatever they want. To be able to take back the reins and say we are the world’s health agency, ministry and government and so, let me legislate, is the challenge for the WHO. For six months now, the World Health Organization has been advising that a 14-day quarantine is needed; but for economic reasons, France and other countries claimed that 14 days was a lot of time in economic terms, because if the worker was supposed to stay home that long, it would be very serious financially, and that’s why they brought it down to seven days. The WHO responded: ‘it’s absurd, everyone needs 14 days’, but the French Parliament held its seven-day decision and did not take the WHO advise into account.
Now, if you go to the WHO website, you will find lots of material where the same agency makes direct recommendations for the general public; it’s the first time in history that this happens. The WHO used to explain to governments and now it is explaining to the individual, to the ordinary citizen: sneeze like this, wash like this, put your mask on like this, etc. They are doing health education from the Organization to the individual and no longer to the state.
– CMG: It is said the WHO has mishandled the pandemic.
GV: Europeans have not criticized the WHO; on the contrary, they have supported it to the point that in Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that she would double the financial contribution. The only one who is making a frontal attack on the WHO is Trump saying that the organization is in the hands of China, that the United States will withdraw, etc.
– CMG: The foregoing is not true. If Trump remains in power, he will not withdraw support for the WHO; his threats are his strategy.
GV: I don’t know, this guy is so crazy that he can withdraw, because his hunted war is not with the WHO but with the multilateral system. The United States wants to get way from the WHO, the World Trade Organization, the Intellectual Property Organization, the Climate Change Agreement. wherever everyone is, he doesn’t want to be.
Magazine Estilo de Vida by Claudia M. Gómez
– CMG: What do you think about the pandemic denialists?
GV: I will tell you an anecdote. There is a very popular Spanish magazine called Salud Discovery; for particular reasons, they took a denialist stance on the pandemic; for them, it’s a lie. They called me for an interview but I refused, because I am aware of the statistical data on the effects of the pandemic and I cannot deny it. I was offered to post a large article clarifying that I am an expert opposed to the magazine’s stance, with the intention of having my voice as an advocate for vaccines (they don’t believe in them either) by considering them as the most important instruments in public health. And this is only one case, because there are many movements denying the existence of the pandemic, which I find to be a total shame because that means going against science and assuming that vaccines will not work, that they will poison us and that Bill Gates wants to kill people, etc.
– CMG: NAbove all, these positions are adopted by some doctors and even scientists
GV: Scientists very much in quotes, and physicians probably paid, because someone serious who has an independent point of view and is a public health researcher or a physician cannot, at this point, deny the benefits of vaccines or the existence of a pandemic. Polio has been one of the most tragic diseases of humankind, as it was painful for people to keep crawling on the streets; and look at the fact that it was a vaccine the one that eradicated poliomyelitis. Today, if I find (which I do) couples who do not want to vaccinate their children, I tell them they are crazy. This denial of the pandemic or of vaccines is something that is harmful and has little credibility because it has no scientific basis.
– CMG: As an expert, what do you think when you are told that the coronavirus is not a virus, but a bacterium?
GV: It’s an Olympic lie. They are two totally different things and now there are a number of scientists who have characterized it as such, since it is a virus of a not unknown family; it has new characteristics and the symptoms from it are those of an acute respiratory disease, like a flu, which like this one is produced by a virus rather than by a bacterium. And this has been recognized in science and medicine for more than 30 years. To say that it was created in the laboratory does not make sense either; the Chinese have been clear about the origin of all this, and even the virus DNA was communicated by Chinese scientists to the rest of the world.
– CMG: And what do you think of the use of the facemask? Is it a personal protection aid?
GV: It’s absolutely fundamental. Anyone who is in a public place and can’t keep a distance of 1.50 m must use it. What happened was that when the WHO had to explain this, European countries like France and England didn’t have enough masks, so governments told the organization not to give that guideline, but when they started to increase their stock, the WHO claimed it was essential; then it stated that it was intended only for health workers and vulnerable people; then that it was for everyone in public places, where people could not respect distancing. From the beginning, the World Health Organization must have recognized its mandatory use, explaining there were not enough masks for everyone.
Magazine Estilo de Vida by Claudia M. Gómez – Photo: El Espectador
– CMG: Why in 2020 in England, France, Germany and Italy did people shout that the mask didn’t work and even burned it in Italy as a sign of protest against its ineffectiveness?
GV: What some people do in Europe is complaining after assuming that it is an attack on people’s freedom. If you put up a warning, a rule or a prohibition that if someone jumps off a bridge, he/she risks death, do you think that is an attack on freedom? The evidence that if someone jumps off a bridge, he/she kills himself/herself is the same evidence that someone who does not wear a mask can infect himself and others, and it is a deadly contamination. The mask bothers me endlessly, and every time I go to the supermarket or the bakery, I forget it and I have to go back home for it.
www.who.int – www.southcentre.int – www.javeriana.edu.co – www.ucm.es – Invima Colombia
– CMG: Finally, what do you think about the management of the pandemic in Colombia?
GV: I will be cautious because I haven’t lived in Colombia for 40 years and what I can say is that echoes come to me from different places, and that’s why I want to be careful and respectful. For 25 years I have followed what the Ministry of Health does, because of the relations I have had (very good) with the Government, as they ask me for my concept about some very good things they do there. The fact that Colombia, like many other countries, is putting its hopes in COVAX (which is an international fund where vaccines are pre-purchased) is a sign of naivety, because it is an agency manipulated by the industry and financial parties. Their naivety is also based on believing that by giving funds to COVAX, the vaccine will reach them tomorrow; it will come first to industrialized countries like the United States, Japan, European countries, etc. The vaccine will not arrive in Colombia before March or April 2021 they will not arrive (in the best of cases).
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