Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report - Fri, 26 Oct 2001
-----------------------------------------------
* Senate Approves $415 Million for International HIV/AIDS Prevention
and Treatment Efforts
* As WTO Meeting Approaches, Developing Countries Seeking Greater Ac-
cess to Drugs Seize on U.S. Threat to Break Cipro Patent
* PanAfrica Annual Conference on HIV/AIDS Opens Amid 'Finger-
Pointing' Among Attendees
--
Senate Approves $415 Million for International HIV/AIDS Prevention
and Treatment Efforts
The U.S. Senate on Wednesday passed the $15.6 billion House FY 2002
foreign appropriations bill (H.R. 2506) that includes $415 million in
international aid for the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS,
Reuters Health reports. The aid package earmarks $40 million for the
Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria introduced by U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan in June. This amount is in addition to
$50 million appropriated to the fund earlier this fall, and the up-
coming Senate Labor-HHS appropriations bill is expected to earmark
$100 million for the fund. Altogether, the Senate is "on pace" to
contribute $190 million to the fund next year, $10 million less than
the $200 million proposed by President Bush in July. Sens. Joseph Bi-
den (D-Del.) and Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) sought to increase the fund's
allotment to $750 million over the next two years, but their efforts
"have been largely sidelined" by the prioritization of security and
terrorism issues. Biden, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Com-
mittee, told Reuters Health, "It's not enough, but it's as much as
we're going to get done at this moment." Annan has called for coun-
tries worldwide to donate $7 billion to $10 billion to the fund, say-
ing that this amount is needed to "drastically reduc[e]" the HIV rate
in African and Asian countries. The bill also allows $15 million to
go toward microbicide development, and $10 million is earmarked for
an international AIDS vaccine fund. An additional $175 million may be
used to address other infectious diseases, including tuberculosis and
malaria (Zwillich, Reuters Health, 10/25).
--
As WTO Meeting Approaches, Developing Countries Seeking Greater Ac-
cess to Drugs Seize on U.S. Threat to Break Cipro Patent
HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson's threat earlier this week to break the
patent of Bayer's antibiotic Cipro if the company did not reduce the
drug's price has "emboldened" developing nations hoping to "convince
international trade rule makers that poor countries should be allowed
to exercise such powers to improve access to essential medicines,"
including HIV/AIDS drugs, the Wall Street Journal reports. Debate on
this issue is "likely to reach a peak" at the Nov. 9 meeting of the
World Trade Organization in Doha, Qatar, where global health and
HIV/AIDS activists will press the United States to "issue a strong
straightforward declaration that nothing should prevent any trade
agreements from blocking poor countries' ability to purchase life-
saving medicines." Thompson finalized a deal with Bayer on Wednesday
to sell millions of doses of Cipro -- the "current antibiotic of
choice" for treating anthrax -- to the federal government at a nearly
50% reduction from its previous price. While the threat to break
Cipro's patent "was apparently very effective," it would have, "if
realized ... represented a sharp departure from the United States'
longstanding position" that countries must honor drug patents, in-
cluding its support of upholding HIV/AIDS patents in poor countries,
the Journal reports. "The events of the past few days have made those
of us from developing countries think, what we have been fighting for
is fair," Nelson Ndirangu, a WTO delegate from Kenya, said, adding,
"If the U.S. can tell Bayer: 'Reduce the price -- or else,' why can't
Kenya tell" GlaxoSmithKline the same thing. James Love, director of
the patent-policy watchdog group the Consumer Project on Technology,
said that WTO delegates are "besides themselves at the hypocrisy of
the [United States'] position" on Cipro (Zimmermann/Winestock, Wall
Street Journal, 10/26).
U.S. Opposition
At the upcoming WTO meeting, Brazil will seek a declaration stating
that "nothing in the (WTO intellectual-property) agreement shall pre-
vent governments from taking measures to protect public health," the
Washington Post reports. A U.S. trade official, however, said that
this language "would really undo" the rules protecting patents that
were established by the WTO in 1995. "It would be basically saying,
'If we feel we aren't obliged to follow (the rules), we don't have
to," the official said (Blustein, Washington Post, 10/26). Instead,
the United States and "other rich countries" favor a more "limited"
proposal guaranteeing "access to medicines at affordable prices" for
poor countries (Wall Street Journal, 10/26). In any case, the patent
issue "poses a serious threat" to an agreement at the Qatar meeting.
An official at the WTO's Geneva headquarters, noting that the WTO
leadership spent "most of last weekend" attempting unsuccessfully to
reach a compromise, said, "It's really proven a tough nut to crack"
(Washington Post, 10/26). The proposals submitted by the WTO minis-
ters from Brazil and other developing nations and the United States,
as well as a collection of TRIPS-related information, are available
online at the WTO Web site.
--
PanAfrica Annual Conference on HIV/AIDS Opens Amid 'Finger-Pointing'
Among Attendees
The opening of the annual PanAfrica conference yesterday in Nash-
ville, Tenn., was marked by "finger-pointing" over how to combat the
HIV/AIDS pandemic, the Nashville Tennessean reports. More than 230
AIDS activists, pharmaceutical representatives and government offi-
cials from around the world have convened for the three-day confer-
ence. Using the slogan, "Coming Together, Fighting Together," the
conference was assembled by PanAfrica, a seven-year-old group aiming
to foster business and humanitarian links to African nations. Adam
Taylor, executive director of Global Justice, which has launched
global AIDS campaigns on more than 180 college campuses, urged drug
companies to establish a tiered-pricing system that would permit Af-
rican countries to buy AIDS treatments at lower cost. A drug company
representative expressed "disappoint[ment]" that the pharmaceutical
industry is now viewed as the "pariah in the international HIV de-
bate." In addition to treatment access problems, conference partici-
pants addressed racial disparities and cultural issues affecting
treatment and prevention (Whitaker, Nashville Tennessean, 10/26).
--
The Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report is published for kaisernetwork.org,
a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, by National
Journal Group Inc. c 2001 by National Journal Group Inc. and Kaiser
Family Foundation. All rights reserved.
--
Send mail for the `AFRO-NETS' conference to `<afro-nets@usa.healthnet.org>'.
Mail administrative requests to `<majordomo@usa.healthnet.org>'.
For additional assistance, send mail to: `<owner-afro-nets@usa.healthnet.org>'.