Watchwoman for God

by Loh Foon Fong

One lesson in university that caught my attention was the need to remove unjust social or economic structures in order to rid society of poverty or other social ills. The enormity of these problems made me realise that soup kitchens or charity was not enough to address those issues.

When I became a journalist, targeting structural changes seemed to be in my subconscious, driving what I write. While I strive to uphold truths and public interests, I try to bring changes to policies by highlighting pertinent issues to enhance people’s quality of life, especially those who are oppressed, poor or disabled. I see this as bringing God’s love to the nation.

As a health writer with a mainstream newspaper in Malaysia for 28 years in the past, I have written about healthy lifestyle, diseases and outbreaks, as well as on issues relating to health policies and systems. In covering these issues, I have encountered an unequal world that is very much defined by capitalism and outrageous profiteering. This is particularly worrying for the healthcare sector because when life-saving medicines are astronomically high, many patients cannot afford them and some may die for lack of access to medicine.

I wrote about the Hepatitis C issue in Malaysia and the lack of access to the latest drug sofosbuvir because of the exorbitant price. The Hepatitis C drug cost a whopping US$84,000 (more than RM300,000) when it was first introduced in the United States. A report in a journal stated that by the first quarter of 2016, those marketing the highly effective Hepatitis C medicine had accumulated over US$35bil in global revenue since its launch in December 2013.

I raised some questions and issues -- should healthcare be commercialised or treated as a commodity especially when it can determine whether a person lives or dies? What purpose does it serve when some 71 million people do not have financial access to a new Hepatitis C discovery or innovation which could benefit them? There is also the concern that the efforts to stop the spread of a disease are hampered by the high cost for a life-saving drug.

Following the write-ups and with the input of NGOs working with the relevant ministries in Malaysia, the government decided to apply for the compulsory licence enabled under the World Trade Organisation’s trade agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) to import a generic version of the drug. This was after failed negotiations between the government and the pharmaceutical company on an agreed price for the new drug. The Health Ministry managed to obtain the generic version of sofosbuvir at US$300 for the 12-week treatment. In addition, the Ministry also asked the World Health Organisation (WHO) to look into drug pricing as pressure mounted on Malaysia to withdraw the compulsory licencing requirement.

In 2019, I also highlighted the United States’ bi-partisan Congress asking big pharmaceutical companies to explain the exorbitant pricing, and Italy’s resolution to the WHO for pharmaceutical companies to disclose their costs in producing drugs. After tough negotiations, the resolution was reduced to just a “voluntary” effort required from companies. But, civil society organisations felt this was a start.

Loh sharing her experience as a health journalist to young journalists at an Evidence-based medicine workshop.

FACING GIANTS TOGETHER

Little did I expect that I would be swept into a global wave of “war” against the oppressive practices after I wrote the articles which highlighted the plight of Hepatitis C patients. I recall sitting in the office a few months before that, having this sense that I would be facing “giants” soon. I had goose pimples. I didn’t know who these giants were then.

I told the Lord, “Lord, if this is from you, you send me collaborators because no one can fight giants alone. And it must be people who can understand and accept me.” Not long after, a foreign communications adviser for a non-profit organisation tracked me down. She emailed me and we got connected and her organisation collaborated with me.

We worked very well together. She introduced me to a global network of people who were also fighting the same cause – to address the high drug prices - and I was able to grapple with the many sides of the issue by learning from them. I was able to write with more depth as a result of all the exposure. It was only much later that I realised these must be the collaborators that God had sent.

Currently, the world is also under pressure from COVID-19 pandemic. The emergence of more new viruses indicates that continuing unbridled capitalism has led to massive environmental and ecosystem disruptions and destructions. These destructions have led to more newly discovered diseases.

As a writer, I can write to bring about awareness of the sufferings of many under such accepted practices. But, we also need economists, philosophers, theologians, business owners and the like to rethink the way we live - we need a new world order for sustainable living.

God requires that we uphold justice, mercy and faithfulness. Matthew 23:23: “But you have neglected the more important matters of the law: justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.”

Isaiah 1:17: “Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.”

Many people tend to go with the crowd without much thought or wanting to “rock the boat.” And without realising, we sometimes get sucked into unholy alliances. If we make the conscious effort to make a difference, we can be a catalyst of change in our society in our different professions.

A note from the editors of Micah Malaysia:
The structures of this world loom above us like giants. Often, we are afraid to challenge injustices that are rooted into these structures, like the exorbitant costs of life-saving drugs that Foon Fong has written about. Yet, God calls us to seek justice. We can do this in different ways, from the societal level to the individual, but it is necessary to seek; to search for, and to speak out. What are some ways you can seek justice in your circles? 

Bio: Loh Foon Fong was a journalist with The Star English daily in Malaysia for 28 years. She covered general news but her focus was health. She was the Assistant News Editor of The Star before she left the company in August 2020. Loh graduated from Universiti Sains Malaysia with a Bachelor's degree in Communication in 1992 and received her Master's degree in Journalism from Boston University, Massachusetts, in the United States in 1998. She finds that her life path has been to address and bring down oppressive structures through writing although she had not envisioned that her life would take such a route when she first started out as a journalist. She was given a short two-month contract by the World Health Organization country office in Malaysia and served as its external communications and media relations from November to December 2020. She is now in between jobs.

This article is part of a series written by various authors after a Christian Writing for Advocacy Workshop organised by Micah Global, Malaysian CARE, and CTI in mid-2019.