Copyright 1999 The Washington Post
The Washington
Post
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June 24, 1999, Thursday, Saturday, Final
Edition
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. A26
LENGTH: 564 words
HEADLINE:
Mr. Gore and the AIDS Drugs
BODY:
VICE PRESIDENT Gore stands accused of defending pharmaceutical
industry profits at the expense of South African AIDS patients.
Welcome to campaign season. The AIDS activists who have heckled
Mr. Gore at his early appearances, seeking to drown him out with chants of
"Gore's Greed Kills," manipulate the facts in what is actually a much more
complicated and interesting debate.
International trade law protects
drug company patents, and for good reason. Companies invest large sums in
research that often leads nowhere but sometimes produces valuable new medicines.
If the industry can't recoup its investment through drug sales, here and
overseas, it won't look for new drugs, and everyone will suffer -- Americans and
foreigners alike.
But poor countries chafe, understandably, when
medicines that could save lives are priced beyond their reach. This conflict
between the legitimate interests of industry and those of the developing world
has no ultimate solution, but avenues of compromise can be found. More foreign
aid from wealthy countries could be targeted to health care and
specifically to encourage the development of medicines useful to the developing
world. Developing countries could devote a larger share of their budgets to
primary health care, thereby creating more of a market for useful drugs. Drug
companies could more often settle for lower profit margins when selling or
licensing products to poor nations, especially when the alternative is no sales
at all.
In 1997 South Africa approved a new law, aimed
at making medicines more affordable, that multinationals deemed a threat to
patent rights. An industry lawsuit is still pending in South
Africa's courts, so the law has never been implemented, and its
effects remain unclear.
The two practices it might condone, to which
industry objects, are compulsory licensing and parallel
importing. Under the former, the government could force a multinational to grant
manufacturing rights, for a fee, to a local producer; the latter would allow the
import of legally produced medicines from a third country where they might be
cheaper. South Africa maintains that both may be permitted
under international law in certain cases. Industry for the most part dislikes
both ideas.
The Clinton administration, led by Mr. Gore, has sought to
protect industry's legal position. You could make a case that it should push
harder to help South Africa get access to drugs it can afford.
But Mr. Gore has not been as one-sided as industry -- or many Republicans in
Congress -- would like. Last year the U.S. drug industry persuaded a Republican
congressman from New Jersey, home to many pharmaceutical giants, to attach a
provision to the foreign-aid bill blocking U.S. assistance to
South Africa's government until the State Department explained
what it was doing on industry's behalf. The congressman, Rodney Frelinghuysen,
wasn't satisfied with the department's first report, so it submitted a revision,
portraying itself more strongly as a champion of U.S. industry.
Language
from that report -- ordered up because the industry perceived the administration
as too soft on South Africa and dutifully delivered by the
administration to forestall a cutoff of U.S. aid -- is now
cited by Mr. Gore's critics on the other side as evidence that he is in
industry's pocket. As we said, welcome to the campaign.
LOAD-DATE: June 24, 1999 
