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“Under Democrats as well as Republicans, the US has insisted on a principle of what is cynically called 'free trade' --- the primacy of
‘intellectual property rights’ over human rights.”
Anger against US officials under
both the Clinton and Bush administrations, which have fought every attempt to lower the price of drugs not just for HIV-AIDS, but for malaria and other common diseases
has been building a long time. For the first decade after retroviral drugs were proven effective, prices were far out of reach of most of the world's poor. US officials,
acting as sock puppets for drug companies, continue to push for the extension of US patent law, with its monopoly protections for drug companies, across the entire
world. Under Democrats as well as Republicans, they have insisted on a principle of what is cynically called “free trade” -- the primacy of
“intellectual property rights” over human rights, flexing diplomatic and economic muscles with threats of embargo, sanction, and worse against nations which
sought manufacture cheap generic drugs for their own poor and for export.
Finally in 2001
most of the world's poorer countries, along with Brazil, defied the US and walked out of the Doha round of World Trade talks till an agreement was reached that promised
to lower the price of anti-HIV drugs more than 98%, from more than $10,000 per year to around $140. This was the Doha Declaration, in which Thailand, Brazil, and a few
others were permitted to manufacture limited quantities of a few generic anti-AIDS medications for their own benefit, and most of the export rights for Africa went to a
few firms in India. Thanks to Doha, millions of people are alive today who would not otherwise be. Millions of families are intact, with working parents and healthy
children able to take advantage of whatever education is locally available.
But now most AIDS
activists and public health professionals agree that the promises of Doha, never entirely realized, are being steadily rolled back under relentless US pressure. The
Oxfam briefing paper, Patents VS Patients, details how drug prices are being forced steadily upward, low-cost generic exports are being curtailed, and although
resistance of the virus to old drugs is growing, pleas to amend agreements to include newer generic alternatives are being vetoed. Deprived of the WTO as an instrument
to inflict their monopoly on the globe at one stroke, the favored tactic is for American officials to approach poor countries separately for what are called
“bilateral trade agreements.” In these one-on-ones with the American bully, you can guess who comes out ahead.
“The promises of Doha are being steadily rolled back under relentless US pressure.”
Nations that now produce some of their
own anti-AIDS drugs are allowed to continue with limited quantities, but for domestic use only, and required to charge increasing amounts for these. According to the
International Herald-Tribune:
"Those who require the essential drugs but cannot afford it, they will have to die," said Dr. Suwit Wibulpolprasert, the Thai official who is coordinating the Public
Health Ministry's response to the U.S. proposal.
“...Washington is pushing bilateral and regional trade agreements in which countries enact "superpatents" that prolong U.S. drug makers' monopolies
and limit the conditions under which their patents can be broken.
“These new rules, once they are adopted by developing countries, roll back the patent-breaking rights that were confirmed by the 2001 declaration at
World Trade Organization talks in Doha, Qatar.
Brazilians,
Canadians, Africans and Thais are not the only ones to brand US trade policy as frankly genocidal. No less than Dr. Peter
Rost, a former vice-president of the multinational drug firm Pfizer,
and now turned whistleblower, freely employs the g-word to
describe the Bush gang's collusion with drug companies and its effects on the world's poor. In an article in New Zealand's Scoop which no mainstream US outlet would ever have published, Rost outlines the predicament of drug monopolists, and their strategy
to make us all pay:
“...IMS Health, an industry research firm, estimates prescription drugs worth $121.5 billion will come off patent between 2006 and 2011. That's half
of U.S. drug sales...
“But the drug company CEO's have a plan to fix all these problems. Just like a bad student might contemplate cheating, the drug industry plans on big
scale cheating.
“Number one on the cheat sheet is to stop generics from coming onto the market, in the U.S and overseas...
Dr. Rost, in his
article then quotes the same International Herald Tribune article that we have borrowed extensively from:
“The trade deals are often negotiated in secret and attract little notice. But they have already been signed with poor countries overwhelmed by AIDS,
among them six in Central America. And negotiations have started with several nations that also are overwhelmed by the AIDS virus, from Thailand to five southern African
countries, including South Africa and Botswana.”
Rost concludes in
his own words;
“When a
life-saving industry cheats, people die. When the White House participates in these dirty deals, the result may be genocide.”
Since the Stone
Age, humans have discovered, developed and used natural and artificial substances – drugs – to treat diseases. Dr. Rost and public health officials from
around the planet have it exactly right. Making it difficult or illegal to manufacture and distribute cheap generic drugs while millions die is genocide. Corporations
and governments that prevent the treatment of millions of the sick are committing mass murder – are guilty of genocide. And American corporate media who refuse to
tell this story are complicit in – are covering up – genocide.
“American corporate media who refuse to tell this story are complicit in – are covering up –
genocide.”
On this, like so many other issues, the
mainstream media are the biggest barriers to thinking globally and acting locally. Rather than serving up truth on World AIDS Day and every other day, the American
corporate media dish us images on one channel of the untreatable swamp of misery it claims is Africa and the developing world, while on another channel it sell us red
ribbons, adopt-a-child, and AIDS walks.
It's time for us
to help each other free our heads and look outside the bubble of mainstream American media. It's time to create and propagate our own media, our own messages, while we
work to change the public policy that governs big media as well. Otherwise it won't matter how many of us wear red ribbons each December 1, or take part in HIV and AIDS
events. We will all be complicit in genocide.
Bruce Dixon is
Managing Editor at BAR, and lives near Atlanta GA. He can be reached at Bruce.Dixon at blackagendareport.com.
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