[Pharm-policy] Poll: Patent on Aids drugs?

[Christian Labadie]

Invitation to take part in a POLL: should patents on AIDS drugs fall 
into public domain?

To take part to this POLL:

  o Yes, patents of Aids drugs should fall into public domain 
  o No, patents of Aids drugs should remain the property of pharmaceutical
     corporations 

please visit the following web page:
http://www.egroups.com/polls/prevges 

---- Why this poll? ----

The contributions re. the discussion on AIDS on AFRO-NETS increasingly 
reveal the frictions regarding access to AIDS drugs that are currently 
covered by pharmaceutical company patents.

Given the extent of the AIDS tragedy at the individual, family, friend-
ship, community, regional, continental and world-wide levels, shouldn't 
the World innovate to find an answer to the problems raised by patents?

Under the Article 25(a) of the 1948 declaration of the Human Rights,
"everyone has the right to ... medical care ...". In many cases the UN has
declared economic sanctions against countries who deny basic Human Rights
to individuals. Today it isn't a country as such but pharmaceutical
corporations who are denying access to drugs to Humans suffering from AIDS.
The rights of those corporations to profit from revenues generated by the
expensive AIDS drugs are protected by patents (something compatible with
Article 27(b) of the Human Rights declaration).

Since the misbalance of access to AIDS drugs is now representing a
world-wide threat to stability(*), shouldn't the World innovate and take
the bold step of declaring that all current, pending and future patents on
drugs necessary for AIDS patients must fall into public domain in all parts
of the World without delay, limitation nor compensation of any kind, and --
since incentives seem to be required -- that any country not complying with
this resolution should be economically sanctioned?

Christian Labadie, MS
Co-Moderator of PrevGES - http://nucwww.chem.sunysb.edu/PrevGES/
mailto:CLabadie@t-online.de

--
(*) US announced in May 2000 a US$ 254m military budget to combat AIDS
overseas, as the AIDS demographic catastrophe will become a factor for
"revolutionary wars, ethnic wars, genocides and disruptive regime
transitions" that in turn are felt by the US national security council as a
possible threat to the US security.

[Barton Gellman (2000) US identifies AIDS as global threat to peace. 
The Guardian Weekly Vol. 162, No. 19, p. 1
e-mail: <gwsubs@guardian.co.uk> ]


------------------------------------
(In Le Monde Diplomatique of July 2000)

No Patents on Biotechnology Products
Africa defies licences for life

by Franck Seuret and Robert Ali Brac de la Perriere 

No country is self-sufficient in biodiversity. The WTO is seeking an
appropriate legal framework to encourage trade. But appropriate for whom?
There's the rub. The intellectual property system, which champions the
breeders' interests, is becoming an instrument of neo-colonialism. The
Organisation of African Unity, offering an alternative that is in the
public interest as well as its own, has taken the lead in new thinking
about the exploitation of life.

Protection or exclusion
http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/en/2000/07/17patentbox
Translated by Wendy Kristianasen

------------------------------------------
-- Reply to answers follows --

I have received several answers saying "without patents research on new
drugs will stop", or "flooding with free drugs isn't the answer", etc.. I
will try to answer these remarks here.

My understanding is that those so-called "poor" countries are trying to
produce AIDS drugs locally. Paying back patent fees would slow down local
production. They are on the bargaining table with pharmaceuticals to become
contracts that will allow them to produce those drugs at lower cost.
Unfortunately since about one year and half, no-one has really taken this
question seriously, concentrating on restricted yet still fundamental
issues such as transmission of Aids from pregnant women to babies. Bernard
Kouchner brokered a system in which developed countries would pay for those
drugs by subsidising local projects (the US is also backing up similar
concepts) yet Bernard Kouchner was disappointed that South Africa wanted to
stay away from that scheme. It places those countries in a constant begging
situation. As soon as the "story" is no longer touching, donations stop to
come; isn't it the problem that Bernard Kouchner has in Kosovo, asking for
more and more funds to re-build democracy at a time when Kosovo is no
longer a "glamorous" issue for channels like CNN?

As a result of this ignorance, it seems that Mbeki has open a radically new
avenue. We must admit that it has open a world-wide dialogue on AIDS, and
this should be welcome. He asked to review the scientific findings
surrounding Aids. He is not saying that Aids is not caused by HIV or that
AZT does more arm than good, he just gave some attention to US scholars
saying it and asked a commission to review the question with experts (by
Internet asynchronous communication), including the Prof. Montagnier of the
Pasteur Institute, who discovered the HIV virus. Among some of the
questions asked is whether women who are raped should be taking AZT as a
preventive measure. Prescribing AZT would be taking funds away from other
measures including preventing rape. Mbeki is asking for more evidences
about the benefit of AZT in such case. But wouldn't the question become a
purely medical one, if the patent fees would be waved? Why should a
president read scientific papers on Aids? Isn't the reason the patents?

Imagine that you are a parent and your kid says "I need a computer"...
Wouldn't you start to read about computers, wonder why they are so
expensive? Even if you are computer illiterate, wouldn't you start to study
the question before giving it to your kid? Wouldn't this issue become
alarming to you if you happen to have restricted savings? Should the
salesperson tell you that your kid needs the most expensive equipment,
would you trust that person or would you start to listen to other advises?

In several answers I have received, I have the impression that *public*
health specialists do not trust *public* research. Patents are typical
"business" publications, whereas "public" research is mostly published in
International journals "accessible to all" (there would be more to say
about that access...). World-wide public research is suffering from budget
cuts. If patents on Aids would be lifted, this would certainly boost the
public research sector, and not just in "rich" countries. Would you dismiss
public research and consider it incapable of undertaking the task of
looking for pharmaceutical and medical solutions to Aids? Does this mean
that public research is irrelevant?

Furthermore there is a latent risk of a "patent war", just as there are
"religious wars". If Aids drugs are sold illegally (as it seems to be the
case), it will be easy to steer public discontent against a group perceived
as "denying" access to health. Persons who have buried so many relatives
(as it seems to become the case), friends and unknown, will grow a grieve
that has no limit, if they become aware that a medicine exists but that it
costs way too much for them to afford. "Do they want let us to die?" will
they ask themselves, won't they? Can they possibly conclude: "oh you know
we are poor, so that's fair enough!".

Keeping patents on Aids really means that we leave the financial market
control research (which are not democratically elected bodies). Is this
going to become an additional argument against organisations such as the
WTO, who have been perceived as giving more and more control to the few
pharmaceutical giants? Take what you eat and drink, you may be surprised to
realise that in about all cases, you are paying a fee to one of these few
giants; to your pocked in all cases, it means that you are paying for a tax
(to the financial power or to your government, but it's a tax). In other
words, do you drink ice-tea or coca-cola?

Linux has proven that grass-root technology can be quite exquisite and
refined. Is human intelligence only limited to programming? With
appropriate research skills and intelligent access to library resources,
human should be able to take any challenge.

We must however remember that if we are to accept the conclusion of the
Durban Aids meeting following the speech of former Pres. Mandela, then
research from African countries will have to become part of an
international integrated effort in tackling the scientific challenge posed
by Aids. This has vast consequences on the paradigm of higher education and
of research, since with shorter life expectation (as low as ca. 35 years in
countries with drastic infection rates up to 35.8%), we will need to move
from a paradigm of life long learning (Western research) to collaborative,
cumulative research, in which probably several persons will work on the
progress of a single research task. The concept of patent has in this
respect a negative influence since it has a strong ownership value, meaning
a paucity of collaborative spirit.

Christian