Jonathan Weisman: Activists doubt Gore tries to reduce cost of AIDS drugs

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

>From Today's Baltimore Sun....  jamie


http://www.baltimoresun.com/cgi-bin/editorial/story.cgi?section=news&storyid=1150090208268

Originally published on Jun 23 1999

Activists doubt Gore tries to reduce cost of AIDS drugs
ACT-UP, candidate's staff talk on medicine in Africa

By Jonathan Weisman
Sun National Staff

WASHINGTON -- Rattled by a series of embarrassing demonstrations
last week, members of Al Gore's campaign and White House staffs met
with AIDS activists yesterday to try to persuade them that the vice
president is trying to reduce the cost of AIDS drugs in Africa.

But the activists emerged undaunted and unconvinced, pledging they
would go forward with a planned series of protests, including an
anti-Gore rally Monday night in Philadelphia.

"It's full speed ahead," said Wayne Turner, a member of the AIDS group
ACT-UP, who met with the Gore campaign's political director, Donna
Brazile. "We gave her a flier."

Other AIDS activists met with White House AIDS czar Sandra
Thurman, Gore national security spokesman Tom Rosshirt, and Clark
Ray, Tipper Gore's incoming chief of staff. They contend that Gore has
sided with pharmaceutical companies to block South Africa from
producing cheap, generic AIDS drugs.

The vice president's staff says the activists have badly distorted Gore's
record, ignoring the work he has done on the AIDS crisis in southern
Africa and oversimplifying a complex trade issue.

But clearly, three raucous demonstrations at campaign events last week
got Gore's attention.

Originally published on Jun 23 1999

-- 
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