Copyright 1999 The Seattle Times Company
The
Seattle Times
July 20, 1999, Tuesday Final Edition
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A6
LENGTH: 468 words
HEADLINE:
GORE ANNOUNCES PLAN TO DOUBLE FUNDING TO BATTLE AIDS IN
AFRICA
BYLINE: JONATHAN WEISMAN; THE
BALTIMORE SUN
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
BODY:
WASHINGTON - Determined to end noisy
AIDS protests against his White House campaign, Vice President
Al Gore announced yesterday that the administration will seek to double U.S.
funding to combat AIDS in Africa.
Flanked by South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and an
AIDS orphan from Uganda, Gore unveiled a request for $ 100
million in additional funding to combat AIDS worldwide,
bringing the total request to $ 225 million. Funds earmarked for
Africa would double from $ 74 million to about $ 150 million.
The vice president declared the announcement "marks a real turning
point" for "an epidemic that is galloping onward, gaining speed and momentum."
Gore's presidential campaign has been dogged for more than a month by a
handful of protesters who maintain that the vice president has sided with
pharmaceutical companies to thwart the South African government's efforts to
introduce cheap AIDS drugs into their fight against the
disease.
Yesterday, administration officials reiterated that they would
not allow African governments to violate international intellectual
property-rights regulations with the unilateral manufacture of patented
drugs such as AZT.
But by combating AIDS in other ways,
Gore hoped to show that he is sensitive to the crisis that has become
Africa's leading cause of death, killing 12 million in
sub-Saharan Africa at a rate of 5,500 a day. The total inclues
$ 48 million for AIDS prevention and education; $ 23 million
for health care and home treatment; $ 10 million to care for children orphaned
by the raging AIDS epidemic; and $ 19 million to help countries
strengthen their own anti-AIDS programs, through disease
surveillance, prevention and community-based AIDS groups.
But some AIDS activists declared that more money
would do nothing to answer their demands that the United States allow
governments to manufacture cheap AIDS drugs, despite claims
from pharmaceutical companies that those plans would violate their patent
rights.
James Love, a vocal Gore critic and head of the Consumer Project
on Technology, called the announcement "a big damage-control effort" amounting
to $ 4.50 each for 22 million HIV-infected Africans.
"One hundred
million dollars is fine," said ACT-UP activist Wayne Turner, "but it doesn't
address the issue of allowing South Africa to produce its own
cheap, generic version of AIDS drugs or to shop around and get
the cheapest price for drugs on the world market."
Congress will provide
a new forum for activists this week, when a House Government Reform subcommittee
holds a hearing on the issue, featuring some of Gore's biggest critics.
Republicans could find themselves in a strange coalition with radical
AIDS and gay-rights groups in a verbal assault on the
Democratic front-runner for the White House.
GRAPHIC:
PHOTO; AL GORE
LOAD-DATE: July 21, 1999
