Jonathan Weisman on Gore's role in South Africa Dispute

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

-   Jonathan Weisman's story in June 23, 1999 Baltimore Sun
    discussing Vice President's role in blocking access to 
    HIV/AIDS drugs as the "first issue" of the 2000 
    presidential campaign

This is Jonathan Weisman's story in yesterday's Baltimore Sun.
It ran on page one, with a picture and more text on page 6.
It contains a few errors of perspective, such as the statement
that the South African medicines act is "an effort that would
bypass U.S. patent laws."  South Africa is not a colony of 
any country, and only has to obey its own patent laws.  And it
doesn't make it clear that patent owners would be compensated
under any compulsory licensing scheme.  But it also contains a 
lot of interesting reporting.  In particular, it
provides details of Gore's negotiations with Mbeki on behalf
of the pharmaceutical industry.  Gore's National Security Advisor
Leon Fuerth told Jonathan Weisman that he attended meetings
between Gore and Mbeki where Vice President Gore tried to
persuade the South African government to find a "a mutually
acceptable solution" to the trade dispute, apparently involving
an agreement whereby South Africa would not openly defy US trade
policy, and major drug companies would give South Africa
discounts based upon the "best price for AIDS drugs worldwide and
then import them in bulk."
			
In our view, the Vice President Gore and USTR are trying to make 
the process less transparent and to avoid a situation whereby
other countries would follow South Africa on parallel imports or
compulsory licensing.  There are some rumors that Bristol Myers
Squibb has talked about a similar approach with Thailand for ddI,
a US government invented AIDS drug.

Vice President Gore's proposal also seems to significantly
restrict the ability of South Africa to get good prices on
essential medicines, particularly if it only covers AIDS drugs,
involves a limited number of companies, and doesn't give South
Africa the ability to use better global procurement to get the
best prices (best prices are rarely revealed to persons who don't
buy anything).  It would also require a massive management and
oversight role by the US government, and I wouldn't want to
depend upon the US government to police the willingness of drug
companies to live up to any "deal."

While PhRMA and Glaxo are talking up some type of deal, there is
little if anything to indicate South Africa is ready to
"compromise" on such key public health issues.  Indeed, why
is Gore asking South Africa to compromise on these issues,at 
all?  And when will the Vice President explain his actions to
the public?   (I guess when the campaign press core begins to
ask questions).

Also, were Gore's efforts connected with discussions with the 
drug companies about campaign contributions?  (According to some
administration sources, Gore's staff did talk about drug company
campaign contributions in connection with this trade dispute 
earlier this year.)

The other major theme of the story is that Vice President Gore
"had nothing to do with" the April 30 decision to put South
Africa on the USTR Watch list, as if being Chairman of the 
Gore/Mbeki Commission and having managed two years of 
negotiations on the issues raised in the USTR report were 
unrelated to USTR's actions.  And as if having been actively
involved in the decision about whether or not to levy SA
sanctions had "nothing" to do with result. 


 Jamie Love <love@cptech.org>

Here is the Weisman story:

 
http://www.baltimoresun.com/cgi-bin/editorial/story.cgi?section=archive&storyid=1150090207665

AIDS protesters track Gore on campaign trail
Activists want change in S. Africa policy

By Jonathan Weisman
Sun National Staff

WASHINGTON -- It is an unlikely first issue of the 2000 presidential
campaign: the AIDS epidemic in South Africa, and whether Vice
President Al Gore has helped block the production and importation of
cheap, generic AIDS drugs to southern Africa.

But three jarring protests at Gore appearances last week have pushed
the issue to the front of the vice president's consciousness, infuriating
Gore's White House staff and raising the stakes when AIDS activists
meet today with the White House AIDS czar.

The activists have pledged to disrupt Gore's campaign events until they
win a shift in administration trade policy, which they say favors the
powerful pharmaceutical industry over the life-and-death needs of
Africa's poor. Protesters say Gore has led a White House drive to force
South Africa to scuttle an effort that would bypass U.S. patent laws to
provide life-saving medicine to many Africans dying of AIDS.

"Gore has been carrying out the dirty work of the pharmaceuticals
companies," said Eric Sawyer, co-founder of the AIDS group ACT UP
New York. "He'sputting a higher priority on trade than public health."

But Gore aides -- and even some AIDS activists -- say the protesters
have distorted the vice president's efforts to forge a compromise
between protecting U.S. patent law and addressing an AIDS crisis in
southern Africa. Susan Rice, the assistant secretary of state for Africa,
asserted that Gore has "led the way" in opposing trade sanctions and
other drastic actions pushed by the pharmaceutical industry.

"The root of what is wrong in AIDS care is drug pricing, but the vice
president is not the culprit -- the drug companies are," said Daniel
Zingale, executive director of the AIDS Action Council, the nation's
largest lobby on AIDS issues. "Of all the people running for president,
Gore seems like an unlikely one to target."

To many AIDS activists, the issue is simple: South Africa wants to lower
the price of AIDS treatments, and Gore is trying to block those efforts.
Three times last week, protesters disrupted his rallies with taunts and
signs proclaiming, "Gore's Greed Kills." A rally is planned Monday in
Philadelphia outside a hotel where Gore will be raising campaign cash.

"We're not going to go away until this administration changes its policy,"
Sawyer said.

Drug companies cry foul

In 1997, South Africa passed a law granting its health minister authority
to let local pharmaceutical companies produce generic versions of AIDS
drugs, despite U.S. patents on those drugs. With 3.2 million South
Africans infected with HIV, and the price of AIDS drugs out of reach for
most of them, the government called its actions necessary and legal.

But U.S. and European drug companies cried foul. They rushed to
Congress and the U.S. trade representative for help, and to court in South
Africa to try to block the law. Industry executives won an injunction.

With the cost of drug development soaring to up to $500 million for one
new medication, patent rights have become critical to companies'
survival, industry officials say.

"Patent protection is vitally important to this industry," said Jeff Trewhitt,
a spokesman for Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of
America, or Pharma, the industry's lobbying arm.

At the industry's behest, Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, a New Jersey
Republican, slipped language into last year's budget law requiring the
State Department to report to Congress on its efforts to suspend or
repeal the South African law. In the meantime, no U.S. foreign aid could
be released to South Africa's government.

The State Department came back with a report in February that is now
haunting Gore. The report said the nation was "making use of the full
panoply of leverage in our arsenal," including the vice president, to gut
the South African law. Gore had made the issue "a central focus" of his
meeting with then-South African Deputy President Thabo Mbeki in
August, the report stated. Gore met with Mbeki in February and again
brought up the issue. To the AIDS activists, this document was the
smoking gun.

"Since Gore is the orchestrator of this whole policy, we plan to
continue," said Asia Russell, a member of ACT UP Philadelphia. "We're
going to escalate until these policies change."

Wrong about role, aides say

But Gore aides say the activists are wrong about his role. Leon S. Fuerth,
the vice president's national security adviser, who attended both
meetings with the future South African president,said Gore offered to
discuss an import agreement to let South Africa shop for the best price
for AIDS drugs worldwide and then import them in bulk. The offer
"would likely be controversial with the drug companies," Fuerth said, but
Gore favored "a mutually acceptable solution."

And Gore aides said AIDS activists are bending other facts. In an open
letter to Gore, for instance, activists asserted that he had authorized the
U.S. trade representative to conduct "a sweeping new review of South
Africa policies" on April 30.

In fact, the April 30 report was the U.S. trade representative's annual
report on intellectual property rights that looked at more than 70
countries. Gore had nothing to do with it. South Africa was one of 37
countries placed on the trade representative's "watch list," the
lowest-priority category.

Trewhitt acknowledged that the pharmaceutical industry pushed the
administration to label South Africa a "priority foreign country," which
would set a deadline for it to change its disputed policy before trade
sanctions would take effect. But under pressure from Gore's office, the
trade representative refused to do so.

"The vice president took the position that the health crisis in South Africa
really needed to be taken into account," Rice said.

But AIDS activists remain unconvinced.

Gore's deputies "want it both ways," said James Love, director of the
Consumer Project on Technology and a leading Gore critic on the issue.
"They want to sit around with Pharma, negotiate for campaign
contributions, then blame everything on Rodney [Frelinghuysen]."

The activists concede that their actions may be shortsighted. Gore has
been generally friendly to AIDS groups, pushing for more spending on
AIDS research and patient care. Sawyer noted that ACT UP's 1994
campaign against incumbent New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo might
have turned off gay and minority voters, helping elect George E. Pataki, a
Republican who, Sawyer says, has been far less attentive.

"But this is a crisis of huge proportions," Sawyer said. "This is a genocide
of 30 million to 40 million people of color. It cannot be seen as anything
else."

Originally published on Jun 22 1999

-- 
James Love, Director, Consumer Project on Technology
I can be reached at love@cptech.org, by telephone 202.387.8030,
by fax at 202.234.5176. CPT web page is http://www.cptech.org