Medicines & Related Substances Control Amendment Act

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

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Sent:   Tuesday, March 24, 1998 2:30 PM
To:     legilink@iafrica.com
Subject: Medicines & Related Substances Control Amendment Act

LEGI-LINK REPORT
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY   23 MARCH 1998
SAPA CAPE TOWN
MEDICINES CONTROL AMENDMENT ACT
ZUMA TO DISCUSS MEDICINES CONTROL BILL 
WITH US TRADE SECRETARY
South Africa's controversial medicines control 
legislation would be discussed between Health Minister 
Nkosazana Zuma and US Commerce Secretary William 
Daley during President Bill Clinton's visit later this 
week, acting director-general of foreign affairs Thuthu 
Mazibuko said on Monday.

"It's likely to be discussed," she told a media briefing.

Although arrangements still had to be finalised, the 
meeting would take place in Cape Town.

Members of the United States Congress last week 
pressed Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Susan 
Rice, for assurances that Clinton would use his visit to 
insist on changes to the Medicines and Related 
Substances Control Act.

Rice told them that if Clinton himself did not raise the 
subject with Mandela, Daley would do so privately in 
bilateral talks.

The US drug industry believes the Act threatens their 
patent rights.

The drug industry lobby has also petitioned the US trade 
body to place South Africa on its "priority watch list" of 
intellectual property rights' violators, due out in April.








Jill Newton
LEGI-LINK
PO Box 1440 Cape Town 8000
Phone 27 21 4610229
Fax 27 21 45 3971 
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-- 
James Love
Consumer Project on Technology
P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
love@cptech.org | http://www.cptech.org
202.387.8030, fax 202.234.5176