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Wednesday
14th July 2004
US
UNDER FIRE
July
2004
Last
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June
2004
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©
ImpActAIDS 2004.
This is an official ImpActAIDS newsletter.
BANGKOK: The United States has come under growing pressure at the world AIDS forum as Europe criticised its trade deals and six nations banded together to promote cheap copycat drugs.
Europe said that bilateral pacts adopted by the United States to tackle the AIDS crisis were a "danger" to an agreement struck three years ago to provide cheap HIV drugs to developing nations.The criticism came after barbed comments from French President Jacques Chirac and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan over the US role in fighting the pandemic that has already killed more than 20 million people, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa.
Chirac on Tuesday launched a veiled attack on the United States for these bilateral agreements, which beef up protection for pharmaceutical products.
Making countries drop measures to let poor AIDS-ravaged nations bypass international patent obligations, thus enabling them to buy cheap copycat "generic" drugs, would be tantamount to "blackmail," Chirac said.
He did not mention the United States by name, but his target was clear, and the speech, made on behalf of Chirac by French Development Minister Xavier Darcos, was warmly received.
The head of the European Union's delegation to the 15th International AIDS Conference urged Washington to adhere to a 2001 agreement reached in Doha through the World Trade Organization (WTO) rather than pursue independent deals with developing nations.
"The message by Chirac represented very much the message from Europe in general," Lieve Fransen, head of the human and social development unit of the European Commission, told AFP Wednesday in an interview.
"There is a danger that the US would go into major bilateral trade agreements that don't follow the agreements that we have all made in Doha," she said.
Some 38 million people are currently living with HIV/AIDS, including six million who the UN says urgently need treatment.
The 2001 Doha pact broke the grip of the pharmaceutical giants on anti-HIV drugs, and has helped drive down the cost of frontline treatments in developing countries from more than 10,000 dollars per year to a dollar a day or less.
"Big Pharma" had fought hard against the deal, describing generics makers as counterfeiters whose activities sapped the profit motive that drove innovative lab research.
Six nations facing serious HIV/AIDS epidemics -- Brazil, China, Nigeria, Russia, Ukraine, and Thailand -- have agreed a landmark pact to endorse the Doha declaration and up production of low-cost, generic versions of the drugs, officials said here.
The agreement aims to help as many as 10 million people suffering from HIV/AIDS and need medicine in those countries.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan also took issue with Washington, asking it to show the same commitment to the battle against AIDS as the war on terror and saying it had not lived up to its promises.
Washington defended its effort to fight the AIDS scourge, with the State Department saying the efforts the United States was making on the HIV front "far surpasses that of any other nation".
President George W. Bush has pledged 15 billion dollars over five years to fight AIDS, but mainly through bilateral arrangements with countries rather than the Global Fund, the multinational anti-AIDS war chest.
Meanwhile, AIDS has slashed life expectancy in some African countries to 33 years, the UN said.
Worst-hit of all is Zambia, where 16.5 percent of the adult population has the AIDS virus, and a child born in 2002 could expect to live just 32.7 years.
Close behind is Zimbabwe, where a quarter of the population has the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
Life expectancy there has plunged from 56.6 years in 1990 to 33.9 years in 2002.
Third in line is Swaziland, with an HIV infection rate among adults of 38.8 percent, where the life expectancy has tumbled from 55.3 years to 35.7 years in a dozen years.
- AFP
top
Activists carry an ink-stained portrait of U.S. President George W. Bush at the AIDS summit in Bangkok.
Photo by ZAINAL ABD HALIMBANGKOK BLOG
Deputy Editor Tim Large is at the 15th International AIDS Conference, a week-long gathering of scientists, politicians, drug makers and activists trying to tackle the global scourge of HIV/AIDS. Here are tidbits from his notebook on the first working day of the biggest AIDS meeting in history.
Monday, July 12, 2004
PUNCH-UP OVER PATENTS Oxfam stages a traditional Thai kick-boxing fight outside the convention centre. The combatants are the United States and Thailand (USA loses). It’s all about drawing attention to free trade talks between the two countries that Oxfam says threaten HIV treatment by toughening intellectual property protection for drugs made by big pharmaceutical firms. “If Thailand is to scale up its AIDS treatment programme, it must be allowed access to cheap generic versions of patented drugs in the future, otherwise one of the world’s success stories will fail,” says Oxfam Health Policy Advisor Mohga Kamal Smith. Thai PM Thaksin has pledged to leave HIV drugs out of FTA negotiations, but Oxfam and other NGOs are sceptical. Even if he does, Mohga says, would the exemption apply to drugs used for treating AIDS-related conditions? Her guess: Not likely.
top ’GUILTY AS CHARGED’ More protests. Activists splatter big Wanted posters of G7 leaders with red paint, accusing them of “deadly stinginess” in the fight against AIDS and chanting “Guilty! Guilty!” They hold mock trials and issue “international warrants for citizens’ arrest”. Demonstrators from a group called Act Up Paris charge Bush with pledging $10 billion a year to tackle AIDS but only coughing up $580 million so far. Other rich countries have come up with less. Japan, the world’s second-largest economy, contributes $125 million a year to the global fight. Number three, Germany, gives $120 million.
top HOLLYWOOD HAVOC Activists also gets stuck into Hollywood heartthrob Richard Gere, head of the Gere Foundation (http://www.gerefoundation.org/), at a session aimed at letting the public quiz high-profile players in the struggle to stop AIDS. In doing so, they take a swipe at the movement to relax patents on AIDS drugs. As hundreds fill an arena to see the “Pretty Woman” star alongside former Irish President Mary Robinson and Thai nun Sansanec Stienrasuta, they hand out leaflets calling for Gere and movie maker Paramount Pictures to relinquish property rights they hold over his films to the public. “Sound absurd? It is certainly no more absurd than the demand that innovators who have invested time and money to develop new drugs…simply relinquish control of them,” the leaflet says. It adds, tongue in cheek: “We can only assume his appearance here is atonement for producing multiple films that glorify prostitution and trivialise sexual responsibility, indirectly contributing to the spread of AIDS.” top
