Come WTO & patents, exit cheap anti-AIDS drugs

[Guest guest]

Come Patents, exit cheap anti-AIDS drugs

Arun Anand in New Delhi

June 13. — The new patent protection regime to be implemented in 2005

is all set to push India back in the field of manufacturing low-cost

anti-retroviral drugs used in the treatment of HIV/AIDS. Even

globally, most of the costlier drugs, affordable only by the

affluent, are ready to rule the roost with the entry of the new

Patents regime.

A recent World Health Organisation report says, the Indian

pharmaceuticals industry brought down the cost of AIDS treatment

medicines from a whopping $10,000 to $140 per year. But the new

Patents regime threatens to undo all this, ushering in again a

massive increase in the prices of anti-retroviral drugs.

The report further says: " Some of the new generic drugs will fall

under patent protection from 2005 when the World Trade Organisation

Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights

(TRIPS) takes effect in India. "

The future HIV treatment scenario, according to WHO, presents a grim

picture. " After this date, Indian generic manufacturers will have to

wait until patents expire before they can begin production of new

drugs or the country may face trade sanctions. " To cut a long story

short, it would not only mean a major setback for millions of AIDS

patients all over the world, but also India, " as India in particular

has emerged as a major manufacturer of affordable anti-retroviral

drugs. "

The WHO categorically said, several Indian drug companies, through

manufacture of low cost generic drugs, have triggered a steep

reduction in their prices globally, and " the price of anti-

retrovirals has (therefore) dropped to one-thirtieth of its former

level " .

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?

clid=1 & theme= & usrsess=1 & id=45575

[Guest guest]

Dear FORUM,

Patents remain relevant as a block, along with corrupt governments.

The mix is lethal.

In India, Vajpayee failed people with HIV/AIDS. The new government

will be barely installed by the time the 2005 agreement kicks in.

A recent edition of Science discussed how people in China are being

murdered (my term) by Glaxo Kline who is delaying the

introduction of 3TC there, resulting in overly toxic treatment for

the few who can get it. So we have this lethal mix of screwed up

governments being pressured and negotiated to death by the US and

patent medicine companies, feeding on the penchant for countries to

be indifferent to the plight of their own people, while the bodies

pile up.

No incentives are provided to change this as the World Bank continues

to commit rape by usury, trade rules favor the US and Europe, and

the " bread and butter " side of diplomacy is utterly abandoned in

favor of bloated military budgets, high tech and novel ways to kill

people (which the Times once again notes did NOT work as well as the

Pentagon claimed in Iraq, with many more civilians being murdered).

The overall picture is so dismal and heartbreaking in its abject evil

of intent and execution that I despair that actual good and

productive changes will occur with the rapidity the pandemic deserves.

I think breaking the patent logjam has HAD to be the first step in

this process. But the fact that it has been SO damned slow and

difficult and rendered all the more problematic by people like that

war criminal, W. Bush, is part and parcel of the global

genocide of millions of men, women and children.

I can only hope that they will be brought to justice for their

crimes, if not in this life, then perhaps the next, if such exists.

I am sorry no one has yet reported on the Manhattan Institute

meeting. It would have been great to think that some pharm companies

have recognized the error of this activity and sought to create

opportunities for access in a truly genuine way instead of the

miserly, cruel and inefficient, scattershot and often obfuscatory

approach they have individually and collectively taken.

M.

e-MAIL: [fiar@...]

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