United States: Interests that Kill
02/06/2001
On February 1, 2001, the United States government requested the World Trade Organization (WTO) to establish a Dispute Settlement Panel to investigate Brazil, in an attempt to dismantle that country's successful AIDS program.
IGLHRC is gravely concerned that the US government is using an untenable interpretation of international law to destroy Brazil's efforts to protect its people's health. IGLHRC urges you to send letters to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, at the address below. Express indignation over the US government's attempts to stop Brazil from meeting its internationally recognized obligations to implement the right to health for all its population. Insist that the US desist from any formal or informal actions, which may pressure the government of Brazil to abandon its successful and life-saving responses to the HIV/AIDS crisis.
ACTION
Please send your letters to this address:
- Robert B. Zoellick
Office of the United States Trade Representative - 600 17th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20508
United States
Please send copies of your letters to:
- World Trade Organization Centre
William Rappard - Rue de Lausanne 154
CH-1211 Geneva 21, Switzerland
Tel: 0041.22-739-5111
Fax: 004122-739-5458
E-mail: enquiries@wto.org - Brazilian Delegation in Geneva
- 17B Ancienne Route Grand Sacconex
1218 Geneva, Switzerland
Tel: 004122-929-0900
Fax: 004122-7882505
E-mail: Philip.gough@ties.itu.int
Secretário Philip - US Mission for European Office
of the United Nations and other Organizations - Tel: +41 22 749 41 11
Fax: +41 22 749 48 80
And also send a copy to the Sao Paulo AIDS NGO Forum in Brazil:
For background information on the history of the US Government's pressure against Brazil, see: www.cptech.org/ip/health/c/brazil
BACKGROUND
For some time, the United States has been threatening action against Brazilian patent laws, which enable affordable production of HIV and other medications and their free delivery to affected communities. Community activists in Brazil have responded by urging the US government to desist from any such complaint, as well as from threatened actions against Argentina. At the Community Forum and Forum 2000-- two large national and regional HIV conferences held in Rio de Janeiro last November--two declarations to this effect (see below) were issued by community activists.
However, the US has declared its intention to take its complaint before the WTO as of February 1, 2001. The complaint, "BRAZIL - MEASURES AFFECTING PATENT PROTECTION," requests the WTO to establish a special panel to resolve the dispute, on the grounds that Brazilian industrial property law is inconsistent with the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS). TRIPS--arrived at as part of decades of negotiations on reducing trade barriers--mandates countries to establish certain standards of intellectual property protection.
International law regarding patent protections remains riddled with ambiguities. What is certain is that TRIPS and other international legal instruments all give countries considerable scope to change or restrict patent exclusivity in conditions of urgency. Public health emergencies--of which AIDS is undeniably one-clearly constitute such an urgent situation
The issue in this case, however, is not the legal longevity of patents, but the needs of human life. Brazil's generic pharmaceutical industry has been able to provide drugs inexpensively to people in need. Yet cheap therapies pose a threat to the profits of US-based pharmaceutical manufacturers.
Brazil has initiated its own production of anti-retroviral drugs, with a goal of providing free and universal care to as many patients as possible. Success has been such that, according to estimates, 146,000 patients have avoided hospitalization since 1997, thanks in part to the availability of seven locally produced medications. Consequently, the number of deaths caused by AIDS has decreased 50% since 1996.
At present, the program's achievements are considerable: approximately 100,000 patients are receiving drug treatments provided by the government. The public health system can assist such a large number of people only because Brazilian public laboratories produce generic drugs for free distribution. Local production has led to sharp price reductions: the price of some drugs dropped up to 72% compared with international prices. In 1999, the Ministry of Health spent approximately US$311 million treating 75,000 patients; in 2000, by contrast, it spent US$301 million treating 100,000 patients. The cost of HIV care is thus falling in Brazil, while the quality remains steady or actually increases. Since 1997, the annual cost to treat one patient in Brazil has dropped from US$7,858 to US$4,137. In the United States, similar treatments cost US$10,000 - $15,000 and are not available for free to every patient.
Will Brazil be forced to become a clone of the United States--saddled with an unwieldy, inefficient, incomplete, and ruthlessly expensive privatized system of care? Will the US make its own massive inequalities and murderous inadequacies its prime export in the new globalized economy? The lives of thousands of people in Brazil depend on government aid to obtain free HIV/AIDS drugs. An affordable means of production keeps this burden bearable for a developing country. Brazil is willing to share its experiences in this realm with other developing countries, particularly in Africa where the pandemic is responsible for millions of deaths. At the 13th World AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa (July 2000), the Brazilian official delegation proposed to cooperate with other countries in establishing model health-care systems and other resources, which could keep mortality from mounting.
The United States practices a covert protectionism in the genial guise of free trade when it attempts to foreclose these possibilities. Civil society must respond to corporate society when the basic right to health is at stake. Human beings round the world, united in varying forms, acting in innumerable venues, share a common interest in community and life which must override the depredations of accumulation: which must outweigh the temporary alliances formed around personal profit. Brazilian activists have called for "a global mobilization to generate a public debate on this behavior, which could have a negative impact on the health and lives of millions of people living with HIV/AIDS." They ask for "protest in the interest of millions of people, particularly of those living in developing countries." IGLRHC joins Brazilian activists in calling on civil society to react immediately against the United States' attempt to safeguard pharmaceutical industry interests--an attempt which is protectionist in its means, and lethal in its possible effects.
Text of the Rio de Janeiro Declaration
The persons and organizations at the Latin American/Caribbean Community Forum on HIV/AIDS, held in Rio de Janeiro, November 5-6, 2000:
Demand the US government withdraw its complaints to the WTO concerning patent laws in Argentina and Brazil.
At the same time, we protest against US government interference with the elaboration of the Dominican Republic's patent laws.
We demand of Latin American and Caribbean governments adequate and strict control of the quality of drugs approved and distributed by either private or public networks: 1) whether they are produced locally or abroad, 2) regardless of who produces or commercializes the drugs, and 3) whether or not they have approval in other countries or institutions, be they patented or off-patent. States should permanently provide the national regulatory institutions with appropriate human and economic resources to verify the quality of all drugs.
We demand that the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Health Organization (WHO), the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO), the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), and the governments of the so-called developed countries ensure that patent legislation serves the right to life, health, and human dignity, and not constitute an obstacle to access to treatment for the people who require it.
We also ask the so-called developed countries to oppose pressures and measures against legislation that facilitates the delivery, trading or production of drugs.
We call on the WTO, WHO, UNAIDS, and governments to support the rights to life, health, and human dignity as superior to commercial rights.
We demand that the pharmaceutical companies withdraw or liberate patents of HIV/AIDS drugs and those that treat other severe conditions in the so-called developing countries.
We demand the pharmaceutical companies not try to use persons who live or organizations that work with HIV/AIDS to favor their own corporate) interests.
Text of the Forum 2000 Declaration
The persons and organizations which work in human rights, participating at the II Conference on Horizontal Technical Cooperation in Latin America and the Caribbean on HIV/AIDS, Forum 2000 in Rio de Janeiro, November 7-11, 2000:
Urge UNAIDS to adopt a proactive behavior leading to concrete results related to universal access to all medicines, in all the countries where there is currently no access.
Ask the UN to declare that HIV/AIDS is a problem of all humanity. Scientific research on the subject is of general benefit: it cannot be withheld or manipulated for extortion or private profit. Thus, they should take effective measures to liberate patents, review TRIPS agreements to minimize the negative consequences on public health in the so-called developing countries, and effectively support the use of the exceptions that exist in the current TRIPS agreements.
Ask governments to assume the political responsibility to warrant universal access to HIV/AIDS medicines.
Ask international agencies which support countries where there is no access to drugs, to recommend that governments take effective decisions.
Urge countries to allow the production and importing of generic medicines, and to act in solidarity with countries with few resources, through collaboration in technological transfers.
Demand an immediate and drastic price reduction in medicines for countries with few resources, as already has been done with vaccines.
Regret the absence or small number of PWHIV/AIDS at this Forum from countries in the region with few resources, such as Haiti, El Salvador, Honduras, Paraguay, Belize, among others.
Urge persons and organizations to present complaints to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Committee, since their decisions are compulsory for member States.
We adhere to the Rio de Janeiro Declaration presented at the Community Forum, which preceded this Forum 2000.
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