OUCH! (#25--Al Gore, AIDS Drugs and Pharmaceutical Money) (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

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          OUCH! A Regular Bulletin on How Money in Politics Hurts You 
     
      #25                       Public Campaign              June 16, 1999
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     GORE'S PATENTED MONEY MOVES
     Why is Vice President Al Gore leading the Clinton Administration's 
     efforts to prevent Third World countries like South Africa from 
     producing or buying affordable generic versions of critically needed 
     AIDS drugs? The answer: there's a presidential campaign on, and 
     literally millions of dollars in hard and soft money contributions to 
     be had by serving the interests of the U.S. and European 
     pharmaceutical industry. 
     
     Right now, the epicenter of the AIDS crisis is in the Third World, 
     where most people cannot afford the sophisticated drugs that have 
     proven helpful in slowing the progress of the disease. South African 
     officials estimate, for example, that 20 percent of pregnant women 
     there are HIV-positive, and a total of 3.2 million out of 40 million 
     people are infected. In response, the country passed a law in 1997 
     allowing the licensing of domestic production of generic versions of 
     AIDS drugs as well as the purchasing of cheaper versions on the world 
     market. Many other countries are considering similar steps.
     
     But the pharmaceutical industry is worried that if Third World 
     countries go ahead with these plans, their ability to charge vastly 
     inflated prices back home in the U.S. may be undercut. While AZT, for 
     example, can be purchased on the world market for 42 cents for 300 mg, 
     it retails in the U.S. for nearly $6 a pill. 
     
     In response, the Clinton Administration, taking its lead from the 
     Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and 
     companies like Bristol-Myers Squibb, Glaxo-Wellcome, and Pfizer, which 
     make the most widely used AIDS drugs, has charged South Africa with 
     violating the World Trade Organization's rules regarding patents and 
     intellectual property. Despite the fact that the WTO explicitly allows 
     members to take such steps in the face of a national emergency or for 
     public non-commercial use, the U.S. has placed South Africa on a 
     "watch" list as a free-trade violator and denied it special tariff 
     breaks on its exports. As co-chair with South African Deputy President 
     Thabo Mbeki of the main U.S.-South Africa trade commission, Vice 
     President Gore has been at the forefront of this push, making the 
     issue of "pharmaceutical patents in particular a central focus of his 
     discussions with Deputy President Mbeki," according to a recent State 
     Department report. 
     
     At first glance, Gore's assiduous efforts seem counter-intuitive, 
     since campaign contributions from the pharmaceutical lobby have tilted 
     mostly to Republicans, especially since President Clinton's ill-fated 
     effort at health care reform. But Gore, who has boasted of his goal to 
     raise a record-breaking $55 million in 1999 for his presidential 
     campaign, is clearly building on a long-standing foundation and series 
     of relationships. And he has good reason to expect that the flow of 
     pharmaceutical dollars will increase in his direction in the coming 
     months.
     
     Before he ascended to the Vice Presidency, from 1983 to 1990 
     Congressman and Senator Al Gore raised at least $18,650 in PAC 
     contributions from pharmaceuticals, according to the Center for 
     Responsive Politics. The Clinton-Gore campaigns of 1992 and 1996 
     brought in $582,945 from Squibb, Glaxo-Wellcome, Pfizer and the PhRMA, 
     including individual hard and soft money contributions to the 
     Democratic party committees. Big drug companies also gave or lent 
     another $250,000 to pay for Clinton-Gore's 1993 Inauguration. In 
     1997-98, Gore's "Leadership 98" PAC, the staging ground for his 2000 
     campaign, raised another $51,000 from pharmaceutical interests, and 
     the four groups cited above gave another $276,850 in soft and hard 
     money to Democratic party committees.
     
     The Gore campaign is also well-positioned to reap a bumper crop of 
     pharmaceutical cash. Anthony Podesta, a close friend and top advisor 
     to Gore, is one of the PhRMA's chief lobbyists. His firm was paid 
     $160,000 by PhRMA to lobby on patent issues, among other matters, 
     between January 1997 and June 1998. He was also retained by Genentech, 
     a major biotech firm with an intense interest in protecting its 
     patents, at the tune of $260,000 for the same period. (Genentech 
     supplied $229,225 in soft and hard money contributions to Clinton-Gore 
     and Democratic party committees between 1991 and 1998.) Former 
     congressman Tom Downey, Gore's "First Friend" since their days 
     together on the Hill, is a lobbyist for Merck. Peter Knight, Gore's 
     head fundraiser, made $120,000 lobbying for Schering-Plough, another 
     deep-pocketed drug company, in the first half of 1998. And Gore's 
     chief domestic policy adviser, David Beier, was previously the top 
     in-house lobbyist for Genentech. 
     
     These people know who to dial for dollars.
     
     One last sign that the pharmaceutical lobby is warming to Gore: 
     $11,000 in contributions to Gore 2000 from PhRMA, Pfizer, 
     Bristol-Myers Squibb, Genentech and Glaxo-Wellcome lobbyists in the 
     first three months of 1999, including a thousand-dollar check from 
     Glaxo-Wellcome's Director of Government Relations on March 31. Most of 
     this money rolled in after consumer and AIDS activists started putting 
     pressure on Gore's office to change his South Africa policy. Instead, 
     at the end of April, he ordered a special full review of South 
     Africa's trade policies, further ratcheting up the pressure on 
     Pretoria to abandon its efforts to bring affordable AIDS drugs to its 
     people. 
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