Copyright 2000 The Washington Post
The Washington
Post
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May 11, 2000, Thursday, Final Edition
SECTION: FINANCIAL; Pg. E02
LENGTH: 484 words
HEADLINE:
Africa Gets AIDS Drug Exception; Clinton Order
May Lower Prices
BYLINE: John Burgess , Washington Post
Staff Writer
BODY:
President Clinton
yesterday ordered that sub-Saharan Africa get special leeway in
importing or manufacturing patented drugs to combat the devastating
AIDS epidemic there.
Clinton acted following lobbying
by African countries, which contend that patent protection is cutting them off
from newly developed treatments even as the disease cuts deadly swaths across
their societies. U.S. AIDS activist groups have also pressed
for the action.
When U.S. patent laws are strictly enforced for
AIDS drugs, the result is high prices, typically $ 10,000 a
year or more to treat an AIDS patient in this country. Such
sums are far out of reach for African countries, which want to buy or make
knockoff versions of the drugs at far lower prices. Clinton's order could make
it possible, under some circumstances, for them to obtain AIDS
drugs at lower prices.
"The executive order finds the balance between
protecting intellectual property rights and also promoting
accessibility of the drugs" in Africa, said White House
spokesman Joe Lockhart.
The order declared that the United States would
not invoke a key clause in U.S. trade law against sub-Saharan African countries
concerning protection of patents on AIDS drugs. It would
instead hold them to the less stringent standard of a World Trade Organization
agreement on intellectual property protection.
The
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the U.S. drug industry's
main trade group, criticized Clinton's order. It sets "an undesirable and
inappropriate precedent, by adopting a discriminatory approach to
intellectual property laws, and focusing exclusively on
pharmaceuticals," said President Alan F. Holmer in a statement.
Member
companies are working with African countries to combat the disease, he said, and
"continue to play an essential role in pioneering applied research and
development, our best hope of winning the war against AIDS.
Strong intellectual property protection is the only way to
encourage this research." The industry contends that without it, it won't have
the huge sums of money needed to develop the drugs.
Paul Davis of ACT-UP
Philadelphia, an activist group, welcomed the decision. But he faulted it for
only covering sub-Saharan Africa and AIDS drugs. "There are
more killers than HIV/AIDS and lots of folks have
AIDS in other countries," he said.
Last year, the White
House negotiated a deal with South Africa to exempt it on
AIDS issues from the provision known as Section 301 of a 1974
trade law. Yesterday's order extends that policy to sub-Saharan
Africa as a whole, where, according to the White House, 11.5
million people have died of AIDS, about 83 percent of the world
total for the disease.
Under WTO rules that will apply to the countries,
certain health circumstances allow countries to order that certain drugs be
licensed for local use or imported from third countries.
LOAD-DATE: May 11, 2000 
