  
US position on free trade said to undermine access to medicines
Last Updated: 2001-04-12 17:30:57 EDT (Reuters Health)
By Karen Pallarito
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Activist groups rallied in Washington today to protest the United States' negotiating position on free trade, claiming it will "dramatically limit" the ability of developing countries to lower the price of essential medicines through generic competition.
AIDS and labor groups, including ACT UP, the Health Global Access Project (GAP) Coalition, Friends of the Earth, and the AFL-CIO, rallied at the offices of US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, who will represent the US at trade talks in Quebec City, Canada, beginning next Friday.
The US is hoping to wrap up the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), a trade pact among 34 democratically elected governments in the Western Hemisphere. The goal is to conclude those talks no later than 2005, although they could be completed as early as 2003.
Based on a summary of US negotiating objectives, activists believe that countries would be required to adopt intellectual property rules that would favor patent holders, limiting the ability of developing nations to reduce the price of AIDS and HIV drugs.
Their concerns are outlined in a briefing paper prepared by Robert Weissman, director of Essential Action, a corporate accountability group that is a member of the Health GAP Coalition.
Most worrisome is a US initiative that would directly limit the grounds for so-called compulsory licensing, Weissman writes. Advocates for people with HIV infection support compulsory licensing because it enables a government to grant a license to use a drug patent without the patent holder's authorization. Competition created that way, they say, can lower drug costs by 95% or more.
"If compulsory licensing brought prices for triple-drug treatments down to even $500 a year, most Caribbean and Latin American countries could provide pharmaceutical treatments to their HIV/AIDS populations," according to Weissman.
Activists also oppose US positions on linking marketing approval for a drug to patent expiration, creating new restrictions on the use of drug study data, and allowing patent extensions to offset delays in marketing approval for pharmaceuticals.
At deadline, the Office of the US Trade Representative had not returned a call for comment.
Kris Torgeson, a spokeswoman for Medecins San Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), told Reuters Health that the trade talks are likely to spark tensions. "Quebec City is gearing up--in the wake of Seattle--for big protests," she said, alluding to the riots that broke out at last year's World Trade Organization conference.
Torgeson said that a parallel "people's summit," which will be open to the public, is being organized in Quebec City to discuss issues raised in the trade talks.
Separately, a consortium of healthcare activists seeking lower prices for essential drugs in developing countries issued a joint statement expressing disappointment in the lack of progress made during a 3-day summit in Hosbjor, Norway this week. Representatives of governments, drug companies and lobby groups attended the talks, which were sponsored by the World Health Organization and the WTO.
"It's ironic that in a meeting organized to help the poor, the main drug company proposals were to increase intellectual property protection and ask for the elimination of national price controls," lamented Jamie Love, of the Consumer Project on Technology.
-New York Newsroom 212 603 3200
|
Copyright 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters Limited content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without prior written consent of Reuters Limited. Reuters Limited shall not be liable for any error or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
|
|
 Back To HIV Wellness Center
| 
