26 April - 2 May 2001
Issue No.531
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 26 April - 2 May 2001 Issue No.531 |
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People before profits
The international pharmaceutical industry has lost its legal battle to bar South Africa from importing cheap generic drugs. Poor people the world over can rejoice, writes Gamal Nkrumah
Concerted action to stop the naked exploitation of the health problems of the world's poor paid off handsomely last week. The world's pharmaceutical giants were dealt a humbling blow last Thursday when some 40 pharmaceutical multinational corporations including the British-based GlaxoSmithKline and America's Bristol-Myers unconditionally dropped charges against the South African government that were intended to end provisions of the country's progressive Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendments Act of 1997. The act lets South Africa import cheap generic versions of drugs patented by multinationals. The generic drugs are currently manufactured in Brazil, India and Thailand. Before generic drugs became available, the multinationals monopolised the market and charged huge prices.
The giant multinational pharmaceutical corporations, in cahoots with the Pharmaceuticals Manufacturers Association of South Africa (PMA), were shamed into withdrawing their lawsuit against the South African government's efforts to secure affordable and sustainable supplies of generic drugs. In particular the government was keen to guarantee supplies of anti-retroviral drugs which can treat the 4.5 million South Africans living with HIV/AIDS.
For charities and the government of South Africa, the meaning of the multinationals' climb-down was plain. "The outcome of the case signals a dramatic shift in the balance of power between developing countries and drug companies," Médécins sans Frontières, the World Health Organisation, Amnesty International and the British-based charity Oxfam, said in a joint statement. South African Health Minister Manato Tshabalala-Msimang forthrightly noted that, "people must come before profits." She added that the dropping of the lawsuit was a triumph for the poor. "While the South African government's drug policy was driven mainly by domestic factors we never lost sight of the international dimension and we hope our experience contributed in some way to the larger debate on access to affordable health care for developing countries and for poor people in wealthier nations," she said. The victory was hailed as, "the drug industry's Vietnam" by Oxfam's senior policy adviser, Kevin Watkins.
A ripple effect followed. Other developing countries soon had good news, too. No sooner had details from South Africa been broadcast than equally encouraging reports from Brazil seeped through. In an unprecedented development, the 54-nation United Nations Human Rights Commission voted overwhelmingly to back Brazil's bid to provide affordable universal medical treatment for people with HIV/AIDS. The United States alone abstained. The US has long been censuring Brazil at the World Trade Organisation for "jeopardising international patent rules." Washington has also filed a lawsuit against the South American giant.
South African activists demonstrate against costly branded drugs photo: Reuters
While Washington was menacing on behalf of international drugs companies and patent laws, Brazilian scientists copied two of the most expensive AIDS drugs a few years ago. Now treatment for HIV/AIDS patients costs around $5,000 per patient in Brazil. The comparable figure for the US is $12,000. As a result, the death rate for AIDS sufferers has halved in Brazil over the last couple of years. The Brazilian government could even claim international legal support for its move. Despite US threats, Brazil invoked a clause in the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) governing the patent rules of the WTO. Under this WTO law, suspending intellectual property rights during emergency circumstances is allowed.
The resolute message from South Africa and Brazil is that patients precede patents. The cull of economically productive people by HIV/AIDS is acceptable no longer. Against such potent imperatives, the bonus packets of Chief Executive Officers in multinationals pale in importance.
Even so, the battle is far from done. Many powerful voices still complain about the "myopic focus on the short-term and on the price of drugs," as Dr Harvey Bail, director-general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations, warned recently. He cautioned that the clamour for cheaper drugs is not the answer to the AIDS crisis in Africa. "The deepening public health crisis in developing countries has nothing to do with patent protection," Bail insisted.
Bail also claimed that tens of thousands die from "counterfeit" drugs in poor countries. But even he and his ilk acknowledge that ill-health and poverty are inextricably linked. "The key to improved health care is to address poverty, financial resource needs and build infrastructure to permit the use of today's advanced health care technologies," Bail declared, ignoring the immediate needs of the suffering poor. He argued that the benefits of cheaper and more widely available drugs could be easily undone by "misuse and ineffective distribution of the drugs."
A final risk is that without the captive markets of the poorer world, international pharmaceutical companies will simply stop bothering to invest in drugs to treat the illnesses that beset poorer countries. But the 12 major US pharmaceutical companies spent an estimated 37 per cent of their revenue on marketing in 1999, and a mere 12.4% on research and development. Besides, the companies could invent the most wonderful drugs in the world. But that is of little use if they are so overpriced that most of the afflicted cannot afford them.
The drug companies' decision came in the wake of two important AIDS-focused gatherings this month. The first, a seminar sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, took place in the Ugandan capital Kampala last week (18-20 April). The companies' decision also came on the eve of the extraordinary summit of the Organisation of African Unity in the Nigerian capital Abuja on 25-27 April which focuses on the HIV/AIDS crisis convulsing the continent. There was near unanimous agreement in these forums that the drug pricing and patent protection policies of the pharmaceutical companies, though sanctioned by the WTO, are wrong. The plight of 26 million Africans living with AIDS, most of whom are wretched and impoverished, must be addressed because it is a moral imperative, Africa's leaders concurred.
By dropping the case against the South African government, the international pharmaceutical companies have publicly acknowledged that it is wrong to ruin poor people's chances of relief from suffering merely for profit. They have accepted that when, for once, the free market works against them, they cannot change the rules to suit themselves. A wrong is a wrong: even when committed by a powerful multinational, and sanctioned by the WTO.
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