[Ip-health] Palm Beach Post: A Tug-of-War, A Funeral, and Drug Prices

[Sarah Rimmington]

The first coverage of the Colombia AIDS drug CL actions in Mexico City
(with photos):

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/palmbeach/blog/entr=
ies/2008/08/06/a_tugofwar_a_funeral_and_drug.html

AIDS conference blog entry
A Tug-of-War, A Funeral, and Drug Prices

By Antigone Barton | Wednesday, August 6, 2008, 03:05 PM


MEXICO CITY =97 This morning we had a funeral procession at the
International AIDS conference, complete with a black-draped coffin
followed by sobbing, wailing, black-robed people wearing ghastly white
masks and carrying signs chastising pharmaceutical company Abbott for
causing the death of their loved one, =93Por Falta Katetra.=94 (Of Lack of
Kaletra)
por falta kaletra.jpg

Kaletra (generically it is called lopinavir/ritonavir) is one of the
best drugs around for AIDS patients, activists say, with few side
effects, low resistance build-up, and it doesn=92t need to be
refrigerated, which is critical in the hot climates where the epidemic
has rampaged.

But Abbott keeps it expensive, and that makes sustaining treatment as
well as enrolling more patients for treatment difficult. Abbott=92s
reluctance to negotiate its high prices has kept the company in the
sights of treatment access activists for years. Attendees at the 2004
International AIDS Conference in Bangkok still recall how the drug
company=92s posh booth in the exhibit hall disappeared, suddenly, just one
strip of paper left waving pathetically from a remaining support brace.

No one can recall an Abbott booth at the Toronto conference, although
the company bought space there, and activists can=92t find one this year.

This morning=92s funeral however, was followed by an afternoon
=93tug-of-war,=94 with patients living with HIV and in need of Kaletra on
one side, and the pharmaceutical giant on the other.

tugofwar.jpg

This one was designed to draw attention to the situation in Columbia ,
where the government pays nearly 1,700 a year to treat each patient,
although surrounding countries that either buy a generic version of the
drug or have negotiated a lower price with Abbott pay half as much or less.

Under international trade law the country could over-ride the drug
company=92s patent and get a cheaper generic version too, but it hasn=92t.

A lower price would mean the ability to treat at least twice as many
patients and have more money for other health care demands that, in turn
could prevent new infections, says Kaytee Riek of Health GAP (the GAP
stands for Global Access Project.)

When only 27 percent of the estimated 10 million people who need
treatment for AIDS are getting it, this is a deadly waste, Riek says.

Riek was in Bangkok when the Abbott booth came down, and doesn=92t
remember if she was involved in that specific effort.

=93I did a lot of things,=94 she sighed.

She was new to activism then, her involvement sparked after a two-week
trip at 17 to Africa where she caught Malaria. A five-dollar treatment
cured her, of the malaria but left her with a lingering sense of
dissatisfaction because she also learned that people who couldn=92t afford
the cure, or get to it were dying.

=93It was so very clear,=94 she says now, =93that there was something wrong
when there=92s millions of people dying and the cost of keeping them alive
is so little.=94

She looks tired now, running from protest to protest at this conference,
in the midst of a campaign season where she=92s raised health access
issues across the country.

She doesn=92t have anything against Abbott, per se, or any of the other
protest targets.

=93It=92s a good drug,=94 she says. =93It=92s just so overpriced.=94

Peter Maybarduk, an attorney for the Wash., DC-based Essential Action, a
nonprofit that works on health equity issues, wore a suit, tie, shades
and waved fistfuls of bills, more tucked behind his ears as he portrayed
Abbott, shouting at protesters to =93talk to the hand.=94

But he says, the responsibility lies with Columbia to issue a compulsory
license, a move allowed by international trade law to over-ride the drug
company=92s patent.

=93This is a move demanded by public health needs he says. =93Our aim isn=
=92t
to target Abbott. Our aim is to increase access to an important AIDS
treatment.=94


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--
Sarah Rimmington
Attorney
Essential Action, Access to Medicines Project
Washington, DC
Tel: (202) 387-8030
Cell: (202) 422-2687
www.essentialaction.org/access/