[Ip-health] AIDS Healthcare Foundation Statement on DR-CAFTA Passage in the House

[Mike Palmedo]

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050728/lath059.html?.v=18

AHF Calls CAFTA Win 'Devastating Loss' for Central Americans With
HIV/AIDS - Trade Agreement With Anti-Generic Drug Provisions Approved by
House of Representatives Today in 217 to 215 Vote; Nation's Largest AIDS
Organization Denounces Action and Calls on Global Community to Recognize
HIV/AIDS as International Public Health Emergency

AIDS Healthcare Foundation Press Release
Thursday July 28, 1:00 am ET

WASHINGTON D.C., July 28 /PRNewswire/ -- AIDS advocates from AIDS
Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the nation's largest provider of HIV/AIDS
medical care serving thousands of patients in the US, Africa, Central
America and Asia, today denounced the approval of the Central American
Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) by the United States House of
Representatives, which ratified the trade agreement in a 217 to 215
vote. HIV/AIDS advocates oppose the treaty because of its anti-generic
drug provisions that require participating Central American countries --
Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua,
Honduras -- to strengthen patent laws to mirror US policy and will,
therefore, severely limit access to affordable, life-saving
anti-retroviral therapies (ARVs) for HIV/AIDS treatment in these
developing nations.

"Today's vote by the House of Representatives in favor of this
poorly-conceived trade agreement is a devastating loss for Central
Americans living with HIV/AIDS where affordable, life-saving medications
just became further out of reach," said Michael Weinstein, President of
the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which operates three HIV clinics in
Honduras that offer free AIDS care and generic antiretroviral
medications. "For patients currently on treatment in Central America,
CAFTA means a fifteen-fold increase in the cost of their medications,
making the House's action today not only a tragedy for Central American
HIV patients but a dangerous precedent that compromises World Trade
Organization principles asserting that trade accords should not
interfere with public health and access to medicines. In light of
today's vote, AHF calls upon the global community -- including the
pharmaceutical industry, funding bodies such as UNAIDS and the WHO, as
well as the UN Security Council and the WTO -- to stand up for the basic
human right to health and access to medications and to declare the
HIV/AIDS pandemic a global health emergency. It is the only way to
ensure that profits won't continue to be protected at the expense of the
public's health and that people in developing nations don't end up
paying for trade agreements such as CAFTA with their lives."