[Ip-health] AHF response to PhRMA's CAFTA release

[Mike Palmedo]

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050614/law124.html?.v=5

AHF Calls PhRMA's CAFTA Drug Access Claims, 'Self-Serving and Dangerous'

AIDS Healthcare Foundation Press Release
Tuesday June 14, 10:07 pm ET

US' Largest AIDS Organization Disputes Claim That NAFTA Improved Health
Outcomes in Mexico: Calls on Congress to Prevent Central American
HIV/AIDS Patients From 'Paying With Their Lives'

LOS ANGELES, June 14 /PRNewswire/ -- As the House Ways and Means
Committee prepares its mark-up of CAFTA on Wednesday, AIDS Healthcare
Foundation (AHF), the largest AIDS organization in the US which operates
free AIDS treatment clinics in the US, Africa, Central America and Asia
-- including one in Mexico and three in Honduras -- as part of its AHF
Global Immunity Program, today blasted the claim by the Pharmaceutical
Researchers and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA) that the Central
American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) will increase access to medicines
in developing Central American countries and called on Congress to
protect access to low-cost generic HIV medications now available in
Central America but threatened by CAFTA.

"PhRMA's self-serving and dangerous claim that CAFTA will somehow
increase access to essential drugs for people in developing countries is
outrageous when the truth is that CAFTA's anti-generic-drug provisions
will actually kill access to life-saving drugs in those nations," said
Michael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation. "Central
Americans with HIV/AIDS will pay for CAFTA with their lives, since
thousands of patients who today rely on generic drugs, will lose access
to such medications if Congress passes the agreement in its current
form. PhRMA's claim that the people of Mexico today enjoy better health
because of NAFTA is simply false -- AHF's own experience on the ground
in Mexico is that the strengthening of drug patent laws under NAFTA has
been a barrier to patient access to affordable HIV/AIDS treatment. AHF,
on behalf of our clients in Central America -- urges the members of the
House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee to vote
against this potentially dangerous trade agreement, and to place access
to life-saving medications above drug company profits."