Kaiser AIDS Summary August 6, 1999: U.S. AMBASSADOR SAYS SOUTH AFRICAN DISPUTE MAY BE CLOSE TO RESOLUTION,

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 10:03:07 -0400

#4   DRUG PATENTS:  U.S. AMBASSADOR SAYS SOUTH AFRICAN DISPUTE
     MAY BE CLOSE TO RESOLUTION
     U.S. Ambassador to South Africa James Joseph said the
conflict over applying South Africa's law aimed at obtaining
HIV/AIDS therapies more cheaply "is likely to be resolved soon,"
Sapa reports.  Joseph said the "assurances that the U.S. were
seeking would not prevent South Africa from importing more
affordable drugs or from granting local companies the right to
manufacture medicine at a lower cost."  Additionally, he rejected
allegations that the U.S. was bowing to pressure from
pharmaceutical companies and said the U.S. was not part of the
industry's legal challenge to section 15(c) of South Africa's
Medicines and Related Substances Amendment Act, which allows the
health minister to import drugs from third parties or compel
companies to grant licenses to local manufacturers.  Joseph said,
"We have only asked for assurances that when South Africa does
these things it will play by the international rules of the World
Trade Organization to which it belongs. ... The U.S. wants what
South Africa wants -- the extension of adequate health care to
the many who, for so long, have been denied the same benefits
available to a small minority."  The HIV and AIDS Treatment
Action Campaign, however, said "the U.S. government could not
indicate how exactly Section 15(c) violates international trade
rules" (Sapa, 8/4).
     CORPORATE COUP?
     A Guardian editorial criticizes U.S. hesitation to accept
South Africa's law, noting, "Two weeks ago, the U.S. Congress
voted overwhelmingly to allow the state department to continue
waging its economic war against South Africa's AIDS prevention
program."  It adds that the "Africa Growth and Opportunity Act"
requires South Africa to forfeit "its key assets to U.S.
corporations and promise to keep cutting public spending" in
order to receive "American aid, trade concessions and debt
relief," ensuring that South Africa's HIV/AIDS prevention efforts
"will be progressively snuffed out."  The editorial concludes: "Western 
democracy is suffering from a dreadful virus. ...
America is just the first country to be felled by this illness
which respects no borders.  Left unchecked, corporate power will
kill every democratic government on earth" (Guardian, 8/5).




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