Today's meeting of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

Thanks to a tip from Bob Lederer from Act Up!, I attended a meeting
today of the International Issues subcommittee of the Presidential
Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.  The meeting was chaired by Mr. Fogel. 
The first item of business concerned a budgetary dispute involving
funding for HIV/AIDS orphans, and a general concern about the Department
of State's new International HIV initiative.  

I was there to talk about the issue of the US position on intellectual
property rights and trade disputes for essential medical patents. Paul
Boneberg first mentioned this issue in a discussion about the Department
of State NGO meeting on the International AIDS initiative, and how the
issue of IPR disputes was ruled out of order.

I was given a few minutes to explain the compulsory licensing issue, and
this was followed by an extended discussion about intellectual property
issues.  Some members of the President's Commission expressed concern
that lower prices for AIDS drugs in developing countries would harm
private sector R&D.  Others expressed concern that more easily
availability of AIDS drugs in developing countries would lead to misuse
and new treatment resistant strains of the disease.   There was also a
line of thought that went something like this "if we can't afford to
provide these drugs to Africa, why should they be available in
Thailand?"  Or, these people are so poor, they can't even afford the
drugs with compulsory licensing, or be expected to use them correctly. 
It was also most as if compulsory licensing couldn't solve all the
access problems it wasn't worth doing.

Not all the comments were like this, and a number of members, indeed a
majority, expressed interest in pursuing the matter further. 

It was pretty clear that this was the first time the issue of
intellectual property rights had been raised by this group, which in
itself is pretty astonishing.  The patronizing attitude toward
developing countries seemed to be based upon an assumption that it is
natural for the US government to stop countries like South Africa or
Thailand from make decisions to benefit their citizens with respect to
access to essential medicines.  And that it is also natural for the US
government to make these decisions for the world.  However, they did
seem to agree that the US public health community was a stakeholder, and
should be consulted.  And they expressed an interest in hearing from
HIV/AIDS groups from developing countries.

The good news is that the group agreed to have a special meeting on
compulsory licensing of medical patents and the international HIV/AIDS
crisis at the next Presidential Advisory Council.   This is quite
important, because it will be the very first time that an official US
government body has ever engaged the public in a discussion on this
topic.  Some committee members tried to expand the topic to other access
issues and strategies, but Mr. Fogel seemed committed to focusing
directly on the intellectual property issues, which were new to the
committee.  

  Jamie



-- 
James Love, Director, Consumer Project on Technology
I can be reached at love@cptech.org, by telephone 202.387.8030,
by fax at 202.234.5176. CPT web page is http://www.cptech.org