Pubdate: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA) Copyright: 2000 San Jose Mercury News Contact: 750 Ridder Park Drive, San Jose, CA 95190 Fax: (408) 271-3792 Website: http://www.sjmercury.com/ Author: Jackie Koszczuk CONFLICT OVER AIDS MEDICINES FOR AFRICA Lawmakers Try To Block Selling Cheap Versions Of U.S. Patented Drugs WASHINGTON -- When President Clinton announced in December that the United States no longer would block poor African nations from getting access to cheap versions of AIDS drugs, gay activists and consumer groups claimed victory over the powerful U.S. pharmaceutical industry. It turns out their celebration was premature. The conflict has simply moved to the back rooms of Congress, where influential lawmakers are trying to erect barriers to countries that want to manufacture or import inexpensive versions of drugs patented by U.S. pharmaceutical giants. In closed-door meetings of a House-Senate conference committee, Sen. William Roth, R-Del., is circulating a proposal that would compel African nations to meet several conditions before they would be allowed to acquire cheaper versions of patented drugs for treating AIDS, which is a pervasive health crisis in sub-Saharan Africa. AIDS activists and consumer groups want to carve an exception in U.S. trade law, ending sanctions against African countries that manufacture or import cheap versions of drugs protected by U.S. patents. But conservatives and pharmaceutical groups flatly oppose any such attempt. Roth aides say the senator's proposal is a compromise. Some experts say that even making cheap AIDS drugs available wouldn't make much difference in most of sub-Saharan Africa because nations lack distribution and medical systems to take advantage of them. Despite such shades of gray, anti-AIDS activists and consumer groups see black-and-white duplicity in Roth's effort. Roth is chair of the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees trade law. Activists say his proposal would invalidate Clinton's proclamation at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in December, and also would kill a similar policy spelled out in an amendment on a pending U.S.-Africa trade bill. Both aim to remove barriers to cheaper drugs for Africa. Activists who disrupted appearances by Vice President Al Gore last year are now targeting Roth. Members of Act-Up Philadelphia, an anti-AIDS group, say they will show up at a planned fundraiser for Roth in Dover, Del., on April 28. ``Roth is pushing a proposal that will mean more AIDS for Africa and less medicine for poor African countries,'' said Paul Davis, the group's information officer on trade issues. ``This is highly protectionist and harmful to Africa, and (to) the efforts to get more affordable medicine to the people who need it,'' said James Love, who heads Ralph Nader's Consumer Project on Technology. Roth is in the hospital recovering from back surgery, but his press secretary, Virginia Flynn, said the influential senator ``is trying to work out a compromise, and he's pretty much doing it against a lot of opposition.'' Roth's proposal would permit patent protections to be suspended, but only if a number of conditions are met. Countries would have to show they are making ``significant progress'' toward developing proper distribution networks for the medicines and training the medical personnel necessary to administer them. They also would have to demonstrate ``meaningful efforts'' to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. Love says those conditions are rigged so that most African countries would flunk, because they have notoriously poor distribution networks and, given the huge number of victims, are obviously not doing well at preventing the spread of the disease. Love and other activists contend that Roth is too close to the pharmaceutical industry. Among 100 senators, he ranks 12th in campaign contributions from drug-company political action committees and executives, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based campaign-finance watchdog group. Roth has received $35,250 in contributions from individuals and PACs connected to drug companies to defend his Senate seat against a challenge this year by Delaware's Democratic Gov. Tom Carper. Calls for the United States to relax its stance on patented drugs have grown in urgency as AIDS has developed into the most serious health crisis on the African continent. Of 34 million people worldwide infected with HIV/AIDS, two-thirds of them -- some 23 million people -- live in sub-Saharan Africa. The anti-AIDS movement says fighting to protect U.S. patents on expensive drugs is grossly unfair when applied to treating AIDS. The drugs cost $10,000 to $15,000 a year, which is far beyond the reach of most people infected with the disease in Africa. In Seattle, Clinton said that while patent protection is important, future trade policy would be made ``in a manner that ensures people in the poorest countries won't have to go without medicine they so desperately need.'' Only weeks before, Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Russ Feingold, D-Wis., had added an amendment to a pending trade bill; it said the U.S. government would stop pressuring African countries to comply with patent law as they deal with AIDS. Now the Feinstein-Feingold amendment is meeting fierce opposition in the House-Senate conference committee on the trade bill. Opponents include Rep. Bill Archer, R-Texas., chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, which is in charge of trade law in that chamber. Conservatives side with the pharmaceutical industry and other pro-business groups in opposing relaxation of intellectual-property rights held by U.S. businesses around the globe. They argue that waiving patent rights for AIDS drugs for Africa would do very little good, because few countries in the region are equipped to get the medicine to people who need it, or to ensure that complex AIDS drug ``cocktails'' are administered properly. With the possible exception of South Africa, the most developed of sub-Saharan countries, no government or business entity in the region has the ability to set up a production facility and a distribution network for the 15 drugs used for treating AIDS, say those who oppose tinkering with patent protections. ``The No. 1 barrier to public health in Africa is poverty,'' said Shannon Herzfeld, senior vice president for international issues at a Washington-based trade group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which represents 100 U.S. companies. ``Grabbing onto the notion of relaxation of intellectual-property rights as a fix is the wrong solution.'' Distribution networks are so poor, she said, that even in South Africa, half of all medicines purchased by the government for its people are lost on the black market. Alex Ross, the AIDS coordinator for the Africa bureau of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said, ``The problem is, none of these things is going to solve the problem in and of themselves. `` Lowering the cost of the drugs by dropping trade barriers can help ``incrementally,'' Ross said, but solving distribution problems and training an army of medical professionals to administer the drugs safely are also essential. - --- MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk