In May and August 2007, the General Subdepartment of the Animal Health in the Ministry of agriculture, fishing and feed forwarded to the Spanish manufacturer companies of veterinary medicaments, the information included in the computing catalogue, published by this Subdepartment, which corresponded to the pharmaceutical and veterinary products belonged to those companies.

This catalogue was a valuable source of information as it did no exist a similar one for a long time, and this one increased the transparency of the sector and clarified some information such as composition, dosage, species and age.

In the document can be observed the following information:

Appendix 1 and 2

Unfortunately after its creation by the Spanish Agency of the Medicament, that information caused a huge confusion.

Thus, in March 2004, the deputy director of the Agency stated in document nº 1242 the following: “this information was an application form for inclusion of data.

Appendix 3

From Veterinaria Digital we wonder the following:

1. How come the deputy director Margarita Arboix confused an application of one administered for a documentation issued by the Ministry of Agriculture?

Contradicting the previous assertion and in another bureaucratic process, the Subdepartment for Publications of the Ministry of Health use the information of the computing catalogue as valid by stating the following:

“… as the claimant surely know, the General Subdirection of Animal Health of the Ministry of agriculture, fishing and feed (MAPA) forwarded a communication on May 26th 1997 where can be found basic data about the products which belonged to their company, so that they could be reviewed by them…”.

Appendix 4

Thus, the Spanish Agency of the Medicament and the Ministry of Health use the same documentation by qualifying it invalid or giving validity according to their convenience at that time in order to always deny the applications of the administered.

This contradiction, with the initial information of the MAPA and among organs of the Ministry of Health, breaks the transparency in the information about such important thing like the patent rights of the pharmaceutical and veterinary companies.

In this situation, in Veterinaria Digital we wonder the following:

2. Is this contradiction accidental, consequence of functional deficiencies or has been motivated by other interests?

3. Which interests can be?

If we associate this fact to the existence of service offers to the laboratories (see Transparencies nº 7 and nº 9 which link the signatory Margarita Arboix to the service offers) affected by these errors, it is possible to conclude that these errors are not accidental but can correspond to a supposed organised plot to delay or deny proceedings as a pressure measure on industries subjected to the administrative regulation by members of these bodies.

Therefore, regaining the transparency in this information would be very important, as the technological value of companies and the free exercise of management activity might have been affected by the Spanish Agency of the Medicament, if they disclose back the information contained in the catalogue of the MAPA IN 1997.