Daley Zuma Meeting Regarding Drug Law

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

This is an AP story regarding US Secretary of 
Commerce Daley's meeting with SA Health Minister
Dr. Nkosazana Zuma.  

http://www.tampabayonline.net/news/news101t.htm


3/26/98 -- 3:16 PM

Controversial laws discussed by U.S. commerce secretary 


CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) - U.S. Commerce Secretary William Daley met
Thursday with South Africa's health minister to discuss controversial
laws aimed at reducing the price of prescription drugs in South Africa. 

The U.S. government and major pharmaceutical companies opposed the laws
passed last year by President Nelson Mandela's African National
Congress-dominated government. 

Most opposition parties also opposed the measures, which require doctors
to prescribe cheaper versions of brand name drugs that have expired
patents, unless the patient demands otherwise. The practice is known as
generic substitution. 

The laws also allow the government, which is the country's biggest
pharmaceuticals customer, to shop abroad for cheaper medicines instead
of relying on locally made versions. 

The drug industry complains the new laws require cheaper, generic
versions of brand name drugs to be prescribed, a violation of free
market principles. It also says allowing the state to buy cheaper,
foreign medicines could allow illegal or poorly made drugs into the
country. 

In the United States, industry officials want the government to place
South Africa on its ``priority watch list'' of intellectual property
rights' violators. 

There was no immediate comment from Daley on the 45-minute meeting with
the health minister, Dr. Nkosazana Zuma. 

``The Americans wanted to get to grips with our health policy and also
wanted to know about the (laws) they thought were affecting patent
rights,'' Vincent Hlongwane, Zuma's spokesman, told the
South African Press Association. 

``The minister was able to explain the rationale behind what we are
doing and assure them that South Africa was not violating any
international agreements,'' he said. 

Hlongwane also said the issue of South Africa being cited as a possible
violator of intellectual property rights never came up. 

Zuma proposed the measures as a way to reduce the cost of medicine in a
country where millions of people have little access to even basic health
care. She sees her office as a way of addressing the wrongs of the
apartheid era that neglected the health needs of the black majority. 

-- 
James Love
Consumer Project on Technology
P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
love@cptech.org | http://www.cptech.org
voice 202.387.8030, fax 202.234.5176