[Pharm-policy] Zoellick comments in Senate re Africa Exec Order

[James Love]

from SB: "Attached is what USTR-designate Zoellick said at his
confirmation hearing today when asked by Sen Kerry about the the future
of Clinton's executive order on AIDS drugs and IP protection. "
 I can only give you my initial understanding ot this issue. This
obviously goes to the whole question of IP, which as you know, even in
the context of small business, is one of our great competitive
advantages. I suspect that one of the questions this raises is that
while in the Uruguay Round we pressed very hard in the TRIPS negotiation
to add IP protection, in many cases we've also sought stronger
protections. Indeed the congress passed the special 301 provision which
I talked about to try to get stronger protection for IP. And this is one
of those issues again where the countries themselves, for their
investment and to bring in the right kind of business, they want to try
to offer this protection. I realise the AIDS case is an extraordinarily
sensitive one in terms of trying to deal with this, and I believe the
pharamceutical companies do as well. My one caution as I look into this
-- and I'm just giving you my view on this -- is that I dealt with this
issue in another context and I want to be sure that the pharmaceutical
subject is not used as a fall guy for other problems beccause as I've
sern with a number of these countries some have developed extraordinary
programmes -- my recollection is that Thailand, Senegal and I think
Uganda have -- and this requires a commitment by the government to
prevention, early health measures even with pregnant mothers, with
children with AIDS, this doesn't have to be hopeless, things can be done
to deal with this. Now some of the drugs, frankly the patents have
already expired, but others may be part of this category and I don't
know for sure what may be part of that. I am certainly well aware of
what a huge problem this is for individuals, countries and the world. So
we need to try to tackle it is this combination of manners.