FORWARDED ACTION

ADNA Action: 012601 Message from: Washington Office on Africa
For contact information see also:
http://www.africapolicy.org/adna

Dear ADNA members,

Following find the urgent action alert from the Washington Office on Africa regarding the Bush threat to African nations ability to access low-cost AIDS drugs. Please share this widely and quickly.

Regards, Vicki Ferguson ADNA Communications Facilitator

Date sent: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 08:30:56 -0500
From: Leon Spencer woa@igc.org
Send reply to: woa@igc.org
Organization: Washington Office on Africa
Subject: Action alert on exec order

The Washington Office on Africa: An Urgent Action Alert January 2001

Affordable medicines to confront HIV/AIDS in Africa: President Bush's plans to rescind executive order

President Bush, after only three days in office, is reportedly considering reversing the President Clinton's executive order preventing the US from retaliating against African nations that seek to draw upon entirely legal provisions within the World Trade Organization to secure affordable medicines for the treatment of HIV/AIDS. The pharmaceutical industry, one of his largest corporate contributors, has aggressively sought to prevent African nations from using compulsory licensing and parallel imports to obtain these medicines cheaply.

Compulsory licensing involves authorizing a government or company to make and sell a product (such as a drug) without the permission of the patent holder. Licenses are generally issued on the basis of public interest, in this case, the health of an immense population. The practice is entirely legal under World Trade Organization rules. Parallel imports involve a nation's "shopping around" for the best prices for a particular drug, as prices of the same drug may vary tremendously from nation to nation.

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Russ Feingold (D-WI) had secured an amendment to the African Growth and Opportunity Act, passed in the last Congress, that said, in short, that if an African nation took steps legal under the WTO to secure affordable medicines, the US could not retaliate against them, as it sought to do against South Africa several years ago. Under pressure from pharmaceutical corporations, the amendment was removed from the bill. President Clinton immediately issued the amendment as an executive order.

Discerning our actions: What we at WOA think

Our key points are these:

1. The nations of Africa should not be impeded from responding to this emergency by a Western response that treats health care as an economic commodity rather than a right.
2. The US government has been an aggressive opponent of the use of compulsory licensing of patents on medicines by developing countries. It does not accept the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights [TRIPS] of the WTO as appropriate for African action on HIV/AIDS drugs. It seeks much higher levels of protection - so called "TRIPS plus" levels of protection. This stance is itself a seeming violation of WTO rules, for article 1 of TRIPS says that "members shall not be obliged to implement in their law more extensive protection than is required by this Agreement. Members shall be free to determine the appropriate method of implementing the provisions of this Agreement within their own legal system practice."
3. Drug companies argue that compulsory licensing will reduce the pharmaceutical companies' incentives to do research and development, but much of this research has been funded by the US government, and Africa only accounts for about 1.3 percent of the worldwide pharmaceutical market anyway.

Actions

We urge that you write to the President at once, urging that he retain the executive order of his predecessor, thus demonstrating sensitivity to the African struggle to address the tragic AIDS pandemic across the continent and respecting the rights of African nations to have recourse to compulsory licensing and parallel imports as a means to secure affordable medications. Note to him that this is not a concession or special benefit to Africa. Rather it is a commitment by the US to respect international trade provisions to which it is a party.

We also suggest that you copy the letter to your Senators and member of Congress, making sure that it is clear from the copy that you are a constituent.

Write to President George W. Bush at the White House, Washington, DC 20500 or call 202-456-1111.

Write to Senators at the US Senate, Washington, DC 20510, and to Members of Congress at the US House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515.

Thank you for joining with us in this effort.

The Washington Office on Africa recognizes that it works in partnership with sponsoring organizations and with others committed to a just American policy toward Africa. Toward that end, our action alerts are designed not only to share with you information about a given situation and the action we believe may be wise, but also to encourage your own process of study and reflection so that you may enter more fully into actions that honor your own integrity and priorities.

For further information call us at WOA at 202/547-7503, or write to us at 212 East Capitol Street, Washington, DC 20003. Our e-mail address is woa@igc.org., and you might also consult our website, www.woaafrica.org.

Vicki Lynn Ferguson
Advocacy Network for Africa
Communications Facilitator

c/o Africa Policy Information Center
110 Maryland Ave, NE #509
Washington, DC 20002
Ph: 202-546-7961
Fax: 202-546-1545
E-mail: vlf@africapolicy.org
Web: http://www.africapolicy.org/adna