[Random-bits] Michael Hirsh: Has the White House Really Changed Its Tune on AIDS Drugs?

[James Love]

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http://newsweek.com/nw-srv/printed/us/na/a10740-2000feb1.htm


Has the White House Really Changed Its Tune on AIDS Drugs?,
Washington says it has shifted its policy on patents. But not
everyone has gotten the message., 
 

 
 By Michael Hirsh, 
 With Gregory L. Vistica,  Feb 01 2000

Newsweek.com: Newsweek US Edition: 
Nation: Has the White House Really Changed Its Tune on AIDS
Drugs?

It was with great fanfare that Bill Clinton announced a dramatic
shift in America's policy on AIDS drugs at the World Trade
Organization meeting in Seattle. The president, in one of several
moves intended to appease raucous protesters, declared on Dec. 1
that Washington would no longer stand in the way of cheaper
medicines for AIDS victims. Until then, the Clinton
administration had mostly taken the side of major pharmaceutical
manufacturers, which in order to preserve profits and royalties
have sought to ban cheap knockoff drugs. But in Seattle, Clinton
said that drug-patent rights were secondary, and "people in the
poorest countries won't have to go without medicine they so
desperately need." On Jan. 10, more than a month after Clinton's
announcement, Vice President Al Gore reaffirmed the policy shift
during a historic appearance before the U.N. Security Council,
which convened to address AIDS in Africa.

All well and good. So why in late January was the administration
still pursuing its hardline policy of protecting corporate
patents in Thailand, one of the worst-hit AIDS countries? A few
days after Gore's U.N. appearance, on Jan. 14, an official with
the U.S. Trade Representative's office warned the Thais that they
could face trade sanctions if they issued a "compulsory license"
to manufacture ddI, a drug like AZT that helps to fend off
full-blown AIDS. Such a license would compel the U.S.
pharmaceutical company that makes the drug, Bristol-Myers Squibb,
to allow Thai or other overseas manufacturers to produce it
themselves more cheaply. A key reason for Clinton's Seattle
announcement was to facilitate that process. Again on Jan. 19,
the U.S. embassy in Bangkok presented the Thais with a position
paper that still emphasized U.S. disapproval of compulsory
licensing.

Such actions were typical before the administration's policy
shift. AIDS activists complained that the administration applied
the same unfeeling standard to defending U.S. intellectual
property rights whether the issue was cassette tapes or
life-and-death drugs. Yet in Thailand the U.S. actions were
"particularly irritating," says James Love, head of the Consumer
Project on Technology, a Ralph Nader-affiliated legal advocacy
group. It wasn't just the obvious hypocrisy of announcing a
policy shift in public and then ignoring it in practice, he says.
Worse, ddI had actually been invented on a grant from the U.S.
government, which itself held the patent. Bristol-Myers Squibb
was trying to patent a formulation process for the drug in
Thailand when it hadn't even been able to do so in the United
States, Love says. (The company was not immediately available for
comment.)

It was only after the intervention of Leon Fuerth, Gore's
national security advisor, that the Thai issue was resolved late
last week, Newsweek has learned. Following a complaint from Love,
Fuerth asked the U.S. Trade Representative's office to clearly
state the new policy to the Thai government, according to an
administration official familiar with the matter. The USTR's
assistant trade representative for the issue, Joseph Papovich,
finally responded with a letter on Jan. 27, which the U.S.
ambassador to Thailand hand-delivered to the Thai Health
minister. A copy was also faxed to the Commerce minister. "The
United States will raise no objection," the letter said, if the
Thai government decides that it needs to issue a compulsory
license. Thai officials, who previously had said they would
refrain from issuing a license because of U.S. pressure, are now
reassessing what to do. Love says similar changes of approach
have not yet been seen in other countries such as the Philippines
and Dominican Republic. The U.S. trade representative's office
did not respond to repeated requests for comment.


   [snip]

With Gregory L. Vistica

-- 
James Love, Consumer Project on Technology
P.O. Box 19367        | http://www.cptech.org
Washington, DC 20036  | mailto:love@cptech.org
Voice 1.202.387.8030  | fax 1.202.387.8030