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May 11, 2000, Thursday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section A; Page 7; Column
1; Foreign Desk
LENGTH: 559 words
HEADLINE: Clinton Issues Order to Ease Availability of
AIDS Drugs in Africa
BYLINE: By NEIL A. LEWIS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON, May 10
BODY:
President Clinton, in the face of strong
opposition from the United States pharmaceutical industry, issued an executive
order today to make AIDS drugs available far more cheaply
throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
The order declares that
the United States government will not seek to interfere with countries in that
region that may violate American patent law in order to provide
AIDS drugs at lower prices. The language of the executive order
is nearly identical to an amendment that was deleted at the behest of the drug
industry from an African trade bill that Congress is considering this week.
The order issued by President Clinton essentially extended to most of
Africa a special arrangement provided last year to South
Africa.
"This order is intended to help stop the spread
of this devastating disease by making H.I.V./AIDS-related drugs
and medical technologies more accessible and affordable in sub-Saharan African
countries," Charlene Barshefsky, the United States trade representative, said
today. She said she believed it struck a balance between fighting the disease
and maintaining integrity of patents.
In practice, officials said, that
means that Washington will not object if African countries move to greatly
reduce the price of AIDS drugs, either by licensing local
companies to produce generic versions or importing the drugs from third
countries where they are available at lower cost.
Both practices may be
challenged under United States patent laws. But Senator Dianne Feinstein, the
California Democrat who had co-sponsored the amendment that was deleted from the
Africa trade bill, said the two practices were "fully
consistent with World Trade Organization rules, which allow countries
flexibility in addressing public health concerns." Senator Feinstein said that
the deletion of the amendment she sponsored with Senator Russell D. Feingold, a
Wisconsin Democrat, threatened to impede the fight against AIDS
in Africa.
She said that some 34 million people in
sub-Saharan Africa have been infected with the disease since
its onset and nearly 12 million have died. "The fatalities in sub-Saharan
Africa represent 83 percent of the world's total
H.I.V./AIDS-related deaths," she said.
Alan F. Holmer,
the president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the
principal trade group for the drug industry, said the executive order set a
troubling precedent.
Mr. Holmer said that he agreed there was a great
need to fight the disease vigorously and he welcomed the sections of the
executive order that call for increased education and improvement of public
health services. "However, the approach taken by the President's executive order
sets an undesirable and inappropriate precedent by adopting a discriminatory
approach to intellectual property laws and focusing exclusively
on pharmaceuticals," he said.
Industry officials said that they believed
it was wrong to carve out an exception for one disease and one region. "If
Africa today, why not Asia tomorrow or even the United States,"
one official said.
The compromise version of the trade bill was approved
by the House last week and is expected to win final passage in the Senate,
possibly Thursday. It gives African and Caribbean countries broad new trading
privileges by expanding duty-free access to American markets.
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LOAD-DATE: May 11, 2000 
