[Ip-health] SF Chronicel-MSF letter to the editor

[Rachel COHEN]

This appeared in today's San Francisco Chronicle in response to Abner
Mason's editorial last week.

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AIDS drugs
Editor -- As an African physician treating people with HIV/AIDS in Kenya, I
am appalled by the assertions made by Abner Mason ("The false promise of
untested AIDS drugs," March 29) that generic fixed-dose combinations of
AIDS medicines have not been proven safe and effective. This is simply
untrue. The World Health Organization (WHO) pre-qualification system
borrows drug regulatory experts from North America and Europe to inspect
manufacturing sites and establish bio- equivalence.

Doctors Without Borders treats more than 12,000 people with HIV/AIDS in
more than 20 countries, and more than half are taking generic FDCs for
first- line treatment. After 18 months, the survival rate is 87 percent.

There is no medical justification for favoring "brand-name" medicines over
generics, and the difference in price would mean treating one person
instead of four. Mason and the U.S. government should be more interested in
expanding treatment to the largest number of Africans possible than they
are in protecting the interests of the brand-name pharmaceutical industry.

Dr. OMAR SALEBAN

Field coordinator

Doctors Without Borders

Homa Bay, Kenya


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Rachel M. Cohen
U.S. Director, Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines
Doctors Without Borders/M=E9decins Sans Fronti=E8res (MSF)
333 Seventh Avenue, 2nd Floor * New York, NY * 10001-5004 * USA
Tel: +1-212-655-3762
Mobile: +1-917-331-9077
Fax: +1-212-679-7016
E-mail: rachel.cohen@newyork.msf.org

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/
http://www.accessmed-msf.org/

* * URGENT * *
Please visit http://www.msf.org/arjan/petition/usa.htm and sign MSF's
petition calling for the release of our colleague Arjan Erkel who was
kidnapped in August 2002 in Dagestan, a republic of the Russian Federation.
Thank you!
*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *