E-drug: Al Gore, AIDS Drugs and Pharmaceutical Money
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[copied from PHARM-POLICY]
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OUCH! A Regular Bulletin on How Money in Politics Hurts You
#25 Public Campaign June 16, 1999
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GORE'S PATENTED MONEY MOVES
Why is Vice President Al Gore leading the Clinton Administration's
efforts to prevent Third World countries like South Africa from
producing or buying affordable generic versions of critically needed
AIDS drugs? The answer: there's a presidential campaign on, and
literally millions of dollars in hard and soft money contributions to
be had by serving the interests of the U.S. and European
pharmaceutical industry.
Right now, the epicenter of the AIDS crisis is in the Third World,
where most people cannot afford the sophisticated drugs that have
proven helpful in slowing the progress of the disease. South African
officials estimate, for example, that 20 percent of pregnant women
there are HIV-positive, and a total of 3.2 million out of 40 million
people are infected. In response, the country passed a law in 1997
allowing the licensing of domestic production of generic versions of
AIDS drugs as well as the purchasing of cheaper versions on the world
market. Many other countries are considering similar steps.
But the pharmaceutical industry is worried that if Third World
countries go ahead with these plans, their ability to charge vastly
inflated prices back home in the U.S. may be undercut. While AZT, for
example, can be purchased on the world market for 42 cents for 300 mg,
it retails in the U.S. for nearly $6 a pill.
In response, the Clinton Administration, taking its lead from the
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and
companies like Bristol-Myers Squibb, Glaxo-Wellcome, and Pfizer, which
make the most widely used AIDS drugs, has charged South Africa with
violating the World Trade Organization's rules regarding patents and
intellectual property. Despite the fact that the WTO explicitly allows
members to take such steps in the face of a national emergency or for
public non-commercial use, the U.S. has placed South Africa on a
"watch" list as a free-trade violator and denied it special tariff
breaks on its exports. As co-chair with South African Deputy President
Thabo Mbeki of the main U.S.-South Africa trade commission, Vice
President Gore has been at the forefront of this push, making the
issue of "pharmaceutical patents in particular a central focus of his
discussions with Deputy President Mbeki," according to a recent State
Department report.
At first glance, Gore's assiduous efforts seem counter-intuitive,
since campaign contributions from the pharmaceutical lobby have tilted
mostly to Republicans, especially since President Clinton's ill-fated
effort at health care reform. But Gore, who has boasted of his goal to
raise a record-breaking $55 million in 1999 for his presidential
campaign, is clearly building on a long-standing foundation and series
of relationships. And he has good reason to expect that the flow of
pharmaceutical dollars will increase in his direction in the coming
months.
Before he ascended to the Vice Presidency, from 1983 to 1990
Congressman and Senator Al Gore raised at least $18,650 in PAC
contributions from pharmaceuticals, according to the Center for
Responsive Politics. The Clinton-Gore campaigns of 1992 and 1996
brought in $582,945 from Squibb, Glaxo-Wellcome, Pfizer and the PhRMA,
including individual hard and soft money contributions to the
Democratic party committees. Big drug companies also gave or lent
another $250,000 to pay for Clinton-Gore's 1993 Inauguration. In
1997-98, Gore's "Leadership 98" PAC, the staging ground for his 2000
campaign, raised another $51,000 from pharmaceutical interests, and
the four groups cited above gave another $276,850 in soft and hard
money to Democratic party committees.
The Gore campaign is also well-positioned to reap a bumper crop of
pharmaceutical cash. Anthony Podesta, a close friend and top advisor
to Gore, is one of the PhRMA's chief lobbyists. His firm was paid
$160,000 by PhRMA to lobby on patent issues, among other matters,
between January 1997 and June 1998. He was also retained by Genentech,
a major biotech firm with an intense interest in protecting its
patents, at the tune of $260,000 for the same period. (Genentech
supplied $229,225 in soft and hard money contributions to Clinton-Gore
and Democratic party committees between 1991 and 1998.) Former
congressman Tom Downey, Gore's "First Friend" since their days
together on the Hill, is a lobbyist for Merck. Peter Knight, Gore's
head fundraiser, made $120,000 lobbying for Schering-Plough, another
deep-pocketed drug company, in the first half of 1998. And Gore's
chief domestic policy adviser, David Beier, was previously the top
in-house lobbyist for Genentech.
These people know who to dial for dollars.
One last sign that the pharmaceutical lobby is warming to Gore:
$11,000 in contributions to Gore 2000 from PhRMA, Pfizer,
Bristol-Myers Squibb, Genentech and Glaxo-Wellcome lobbyists in the
first three months of 1999, including a thousand-dollar check from
Glaxo-Wellcome's Director of Government Relations on March 31. Most of
this money rolled in after consumer and AIDS activists started putting
pressure on Gore's office to change his South Africa policy. Instead,
at the end of April, he ordered a special full review of South
Africa's trade policies, further ratcheting up the pressure on
Pretoria to abandon its efforts to bring affordable AIDS drugs to its
people.
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