Op Ed that Washington Post will not run

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

The Washington Post said it will not run this op ed.
"We don't give reasons," I was told.  Jamie


To:		Stephen Rosenfeld
		via fax 202.344.5269
From:	Jamie Love, Director, Consumer Project on Technology
		http://www.cptech.org
		202.387.8030, fax 202.234.5176

Re:	Taking Exception to Editorial on Vice President Gore
        and trade dispute involving AIDS drugs

About 20 percent of pregnant women in South Africa and as many as
45 percent of the young men in the South Africa Military are
infected with HIV/AIDS.  Throughout Africa, more than 22 million
are infected.  These people will die without access to medicines. 
This is a horrible tragedy - a context absent from the 6/24
Washington Post editorial, "Mr. Gore and the AIDS drugs," which
treated the campaign controversy over South Africa trade
sanctions as little more than political carnival.

Regardless of US government policies, millions of Africans will
soon die.  The current trade dispute with South Africa over its
pharmaceutical polices is about how many millions will die. 

As noted in the editorial, the South Africa government is seeking
to implement two measures to lower the costs of medicines. 
Parallel importing would permit South Africa to shop around and
buy drugs at the best world price, rather than rely upon local
distributors.  Compulsory licensing of pharmaceutical patents to
generic drug companies (with government set royalties) would
bring drug prices closer in line with manufacturing costs.  Both
policies can dramatically lower the prices of medicines for the
South African population - as much as 95 percent in some cases.  

The Post editorial implies that such polices run contrary to
international law or international trade agreements.  This is
untrue.  

Parallel importing of pharmaceuticals is not only permitted under
the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, but it is practiced in
the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and in many other countries. 

Compulsory licensing is also permitted under the WTO, and
practiced extensively in the United States, as well as in the
United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan and elsewhere.  Indeed,
the United States has issued hundreds of compulsory licenses in
such areas as gene technologies, pharmaceutical drugs, air
pollution devices, nuclear power, personal computers and
software, to promote our own public policy objectives.

The US government, led by Vice President Gore, has cynically
branded the South African government as a violator of
international law.  In fact, South Africa is a victim of
bilateral bullying by US government officials, including the Vice
President, who as chair of the US/South Africa Binational
Commission is personally involved in making policy in this area.
Beginning in early 1997, the Vice President and his staff have
undertaken an extensive campaign to pressure the South African
government on a wide range of issues relating to pharmaceutical
drugs, including parallel importing and compulsory licensing, as
well as taking up pro-industry policies on issues such as generic
drug substitution or registration of competitive versions of the
cancer drug Taxol.

One Department of State report describes 20 separate bilateral
meetings with South Africa on these topics, attended by the Vice
President, Commerce Sectretary Daley and officials at USTR, the
Department of State and other federal agencies.  

The US government coerced the South African health minister into
negotiating with pharmaceutical industry executives over changes
in South African laws on pharmaceuticals, and Vice President Gore
personally told President Mbeki that lower tariffs on South
African exports were linked to South Africa's progress on those
talks. 

The South African government was told by US trade officials that
speaking out at World Health Organization meetings and other
international forums is considered a barrier to US trade, causing
the South African government to curtail participation in two
recent meetings in Geneva where compulsory licensing of HIV/AIDS
drugs was discussed.

The US government even enlisted the efforts of the Presidents of
Germany, France and Switzerland to pressure South Africa on
behalf of the pharmaceutical industry. 

Consumer groups first wrote the Vice President about the South
African dispute in July 1997, and for two years have
unsuccessfully sought a dialogue with the Administration on South
African trade sanctions.  Most recently, the Administration
signed off on yet another round of trade sanctions, including a
special "out-of-cycle review" of South African intellectual
property policies, to be completed by September of this year.

The concern in the Post editorial regarding R&D incentives is
overstated.  Africa is a little more than 1 percent of the global
pharmaceutical market, and for most HIV/AIDS drugs sales in
Africa are negligible, due to the high prices.  Compulsory
licensing of HIV/AIDS drugs for Africa is mostly a public
relations problem for drug companies trying to set high prices in
the USA and Europe. 


It is also relevant that many of the candidates for compulsory
licensing are HIV/AIDS drugs like AZT, ddI, ddC, 3TC, d4T and
Ritonavir that were developed with public support.  In many
cases, the Clinton/Gore Administration controls certain patent
rights to these drugs and could, if it chose, permit developing
countries or the World Health Organization to manufacture cheap
versions for developing countries.  This would cost the U.S.
government nothing, but anger the large pharmaceutical companies
like Glaxo and Bristol-Myers Squibb that make billions charging
high prices for their exclusive rights to US government funded
inventions.
					
For two years the Washington Post and most established news
outlets have refused to cover this story, leading the Vice-
President and others to believe they could curry favor with the
drug industry with no domestic political downside.  

It has taken a courageous band of AIDS activists to send the Vice
President and the nation a wake up call on this issue.

The Vice President should be asked to speak publicly about his
role in blocking access to essential medicines in Africa, and to
state whether or not he agrees with current sanctions that are
still in place.  If he disagrees with the sanctions, he can set
the record straight and end the protests.  


				# 30 #

-- 
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