[Ip-health] Thailand, Abbott and the Second Line AIDS Crisis: Press Teleconf Wed 25 April 2007, 10 EST

[Buddhima Lokuge]

Doctors Without Borders- Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)

For Immediate Release
Contact Kevin Phelan at. (int) 1-212-655-3763. (Int) 1-646-201-823 0
(mobile)

MEDIA ADVISORY - PRESS TELECONFERENCE

The Second-Line AIDS Crisis- Condemned to Repeat?

WHEN-    Wednesday April 25. 2007. 10 am EST

CALL IN-        (int) 1-866-244-4629 toll free in the United States
                (int) 1-703-639-1176 from abroad
WHO-
- Tido von Schoen-Angerer. MD, Executive Director. Campaign for Access to
Essential Medicines. Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)
- Paul Cawthorne. Head of Mission for Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)
projects in Thailand
- Warit Purahong. Chairperson. Thai Network of Positive People
- Rohit Malpani. Trade Policy Advisor. Oxfam America

When the government of Thailand in March issued a compulsory license for
the crucial second-line AIDS medicine Lopinavir-ritonavir marketed as
Kaletra by Abbott Laboratories the Chicago-based company took the
unprecedented step of withdrawing all new medicines from the registration
process in Thailand.

This week several community leaders from Thailand will be in the United
States to discuss the importance of using flexibilities like compulsory
licenses to overcome the crisis in AIDS care in Thailand and throughout
the developing world.

Compulsory licenses are legally recognized by all governments in the WTO
as a means to overcome the barriers created by monopolistic pricing
practices. In fact Abbott Laboratories benefited from a compulsory license
ordered by Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2005 on the rapid-exchange
delivery system for drug-eluting stents (DES). But Abbotts harsh move in
Thailand and drug patent disputes elsewhere raise several important
questions-

- What good are the flexibilities built into international trade
agreements if countries will be penalized for using them?
- What will be needed to provide people living with HIV/AIDS and other
diseases the medicines required for their survival?
- How do we avoid repeating the situation in the late 1990s when many
people living with HIV/AIDS were condemned to death simply because they
could not pay for life-saving medicines that were widely available in the
developed world?
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Buddhima Lokuge
Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines
Doctors Without Borders/M=E9decins Sans Fronti=E8res (MSF)
New York