Folha de Sao Paulo - AIDS: Actions in the US Call for Breaking Patents 13 Maio 2005
Objective is to pressure the Brazilian government to confront the pharmaceutical industry; Sao Paulo will also have a protest today
Actions in US call for break of patents
PEDRO DIAS LEITE
DE NOVA YORK
International groups aligned themselves with Brazilian NGOs and launched protests in New York, Washington and Paris to pressure the Brazilian government to break patents on three AIDS medications. Today the activists will hold a protest in front of the Brazilian UN Mission in Manhatttan, New York. Another action is planned for Washington. Yesterday, a group had already protested in front of the Brazilian embassy in Paris. In Brazil, the protest is planned for 1 pm, in the Praça da Republica, in Sao Paulo.
“We had many discussions about whether or not to criticize Brazil, but we believe that in this instance they [the government] is giving up its moral authority,” said Shanti Avirgan, of the NGO Act Up, which considers the country “a model for others” on the question of AIDS. These groups affirm that the Brazilian government had set a deadline of one month, on March 15th, to break the patents on three AIDS medicines if the pharmaceutical companies did not cede the right to produce the medicines. These three drugs make up around 80% of the money spent on medications to fight the disease, today around R$560 million.
Almost a month after the date of the ultimatum passed, according to national and foreign NGOs, the Brazilian government still has not taken any action. “We are launching an appeal to Brazil to show its teeth and doesn’t make any more empty promises,” which only threaten, but don’t break, the patents.
WTO Rules
The groups want Brazil to use a rule of the World Trade Organization which authorizes the breaking of patents in cases of national emergency. In Paris,two representatives from the dozen, were received formally by a functionary of the Embassy. Today, there should be about 15 people at the protest in New York, and the representative of the UN has already said that a small group would be met, said the NGO.
When, in the middle of the week, more than one hundred groups from civil society called on Brazil to break the patents, the government called the demand “ingenious”. For the organizations, meanwhile, Brazil’s leadership in the past is important, not only to maintain the current policies on AIDS but also for other countries around the world. “The success of the Brazilian program was only possible through the local production of generics. This policy brought the prices of antiretrovirals down internationally. The Ministry of Health needs to act against the pharmaceutical industry, not only for the Brazilian people but for people with AIDS
around the world, said Sean Barry, of Health GAP (Global Access Project).
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