---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 19:07:57 -0500
From: APIC <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Africa: Lines Drawn on Global AIDS Policy
Africa: Lines Drawn on Global AIDS Policy
Date distributed (ymd): 010521
Document reposted by APIC
Africa Policy Electronic Distribution List: an information
service provided by AFRICA ACTION (incorporating the Africa
Policy Information Center, The Africa Fund, and the American
Committee on Africa). Find more information for action for
Africa at http://www.africapolicy.org
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Region: Continent-Wide
Issue Areas: +political/rights+ +economy/development+
+US policy focus+
SUMMARY CONTENTS:
This posting contains (1) a call from over 150 Yale University
deans, faculty and student leaders for President Bush to change his
policy and do more on AIDS, (2) a brief news report on U.S. and
European successful efforts to weaken a Brazilian-sponsored
resolution at the World Heath Assembly on May 19, and (3) excerpts
from the Brazilian resolution presented to the Assembly. These
documents clearly delineate contrasting views on how to address the
global health emergency, which will be again debated at the UN
General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on AIDS at the end of
June. For additional background material and updates,see
http://www.hdnet.org (includes archive of discussion leading up to
UNGASS), http://www.globaltreatmentaccess.org, plus previous
postings and other links at
http://www.africapolicy.org/action/health.htm
For the most recent statement of position by Africa Action,
denouncing the White House commitment of only $200 million,
in funds from other international accounts, see the May 11 press
release, "White House Announcement on Global Aids Funding Equals
Death Sentence for Millions of Africans," at
http://www.africapolicy.org/desk
+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Yale AIDS Network
May 19, 2001
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Eric Poolman at (203) 589-8925 or Tyler Crone (203)
589-8876
BUSH'S ALMA MATER URGES AIDS AGENDA: DEANS, FACULTY AND STUDENTS
SAY TO BUSH, LEAD THE FUND AGAINST GLOBAL AIDS SUPPORT AIDS
TREATMENT AND PREVENTION
The Yale AIDS Network, a coalition of Yale students, faculty and
administrators, has released a letter urging President George W.
Bush to show leadership in the fight against global AIDS. Signed
by over 150 Yale University deans, faculty, and students, and
supported by President Richard C. Levin, the letter calls for the
US to invest in the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS in proportion to our
share of worldwide GNP, to support a strengthened version of the
UN General Assembly Declaration on HIV/AIDS,and to commit to
treatment, prevention and care as inseparable aspects of a
comprehensive response to AIDS.
When President Bush speaks at Yale's tercentennial commencement
ceremony on Monday, he will face a sea of red ribbons worn by
graduates, faculty, and family, symbolizing the need for US
leadership in the fight against global AIDS. In the coming weeks
the Bush administration has a unique opportunity to turn the tide
of twenty years of inadequate responses to HIV/AIDS. Members of
the administration will meet with international delegates in New
York next week, and again in June, as part of the UN General
Assembly Special Session on AIDS, where the future worldwide goals
and responses to AIDS will be determined.
One signatory, Harold Hongju Koh, Professor of International Law
and Former Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and
Labor, said: "The fight against global AIDS is the biggest human
rights challenge to the world today. It is a fight that requires
both serious money and serious diplomacy. The United States has
far too much at stake in this battle to wait for others to lead."
Network co-founder Elizabeth Tyler Crone, MPH, said: "Students,
Deans, Yale's AIDS experts, and even President Levin himself have
spoken out in support of the recommendations of this letter. We
hope President Bush heeds our call, and provides a dramatic
increase in funding for AIDS, and an approach to the pandemic
which recognizes the need for both treatment and prevention."
Attached is the Yale AIDS Network letter. Signatories include Dean
Michael Merson, Dean of the School of Epidemiology and Public
Health, previously head of the World Health Organization (WHO)
Global Program on AIDS; Dean David Kessler, Dean of the School of
Medicine and former FDA commissioner; Dean Anthony Kronman, Dean
of the Law School; Dean Catherine L. Gilliss, Dean of the Nursing
School; Dean James Gustave Speth, Dean of the School of Forestry
and Environmental Studies; and Professor Ilona Kickbusch,
Epidemiology and Public Health Division Head for Global Health.
Background on the Yale AIDS Network The Yale AIDS Network was
formed in the spring of this year as an outgrowth of student and
faculty pressure upon Yale to respond to the need for cheaper
HIV/AIDS treatment in South Africa by relaxing the University's
patent on the antiretroviral drug d4t there. The Network joins
students, faculty, and researchers from different disciplines with
the purpose of coordinating and extending Yale's collective
response to the global AIDS crisis.
- 30 -
May 19, 2001
The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500
Re: United States leadership in the fight against the global AIDS
pandemic
Dear President Bush,
We, faculty and students of Yale University, are deeply concerned
about the global HIV/AIDS crisis. We write to express our
conviction that the United States must exhibit leadership at this
critical juncture by coming forward as the lead contributor to the
Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, and by signing a strengthened version of
the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS at the June 25-27 United
Nations General Assembly Special Session.
We have worked internationally in the prevention and treatment of
HIV/AIDS, and in the formulation of laws, policies and ethics
associated with HIV/AIDS. Our response to the growing pandemic
includes providing comprehensive care to large numbers of adults
and children with HIV/AIDS; discovering antiretroviral drugs;
leading the World Health Organization Global Program on AIDS;
initiating needle exchange programs; establishing community-based
prevention and treatment programs around the world; addressing the
human rights and legal implications of HIV/AIDS; serving on the
editorial boards of leading medical journals focused on HIV/AIDS;
and serving as consultants to the National Institutes of Health,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Academy of
Sciences, President's Commission on AIDS, and World Bank, among
others. Most recently, Yale University has taken strong action to
address the issue of access to treatment by negotiating with
Bristol-Myers Squibb to relax the patent on the antiretroviral
drug d4T in South Africa.
The world is now poised to take dramatic steps to combat the
HIV/AIDS pandemic. United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has
called for $7-10 billion annually for a Global Fund for HIV/AIDS.
Two important conditions for the effective use of such a fund have
crystallized in the last year: strong international and national
leadership on HIV/AIDS, and a dynamic spirit of public/private
partnership. As countries around the world join forces toward
productive measures to combat the pandemic, the United States
appears to be moving in a disappointing direction, unworthy of our
role as a global leader. Even as the Administration has recognized
AIDS as a threat to our national security, we have not provided a
commensurate response. The United States has chosen to emphasize
intellectual property rights over human rights, and to pit
prevention against treatment.
At this formative moment, the United States should support an
approach to combating the pandemic based upon two basic
principles. First, treatment and prevention are inextricably
linked, and the United States should fully support both. A false
dichotomy between treatment and prevention will prevent progress
on both fronts. As the "Harvard Consensus Statement on
Antiretroviral Treatment for AIDS in Poor Countries" shows,
treatment is necessary to optimize prevention efforts, to sustain
the fabric of societies, and to continue global economic
development. Second, increased respect for human rights is a
necessary part of the response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Failure
to protect the rights of people living with AIDS and other members
of societies affected by the pandemic undermines prevention and
treatment efforts, as well as prospects for healthy economic and
social development. We should use the United Nations General
Assembly Special Session to affirm respect for human rights as
central to fighting the pandemic.
Following these principles, the Administration should approach the
United Nations General Assembly Special Session with the following
goals:
The United States should take the lead and support the Global Fund
for HIV/AIDS fully and immediately. Costs associated with HIV/AIDS
have risen exponentially, and every year it costs more to contain
the crisis. An international consensus is emerging that a global
fund of $7-10 billion per year is needed to fight AIDS, starting
now. Recently, the Administration announced that the United
States will initially contribute only $200 million to the Fund,
just two percent of the total needed. A reasonable contribution,
reflecting our share of the world's GNP and our firm commitment to
halting the pandemic, would be twenty-five percent of the total,
or $2.5 billion. This figure should be considered a sensible
investment, since the costs of confronting the epidemic will only
increase if we fail to act decisively now. The United States
should also significantly increase official development assistance
to combat inadequate education, poor nutrition, weak health care
systems, and other aspects of poverty that contribute to the
devastation of HIV/AIDS.
The United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS
Draft Declaration must be strengthened if it is to have any real
impact. It must reflect the urgent need for collective action to
bring about substantial and immediate change, and include explicit
goals and timelines for prevention and treatment that correspond
at a minimum with those set in the UNAIDS five-year plan.
The United Nations General Assembly Special Session gives you a
unique opportunity to demonstrate world leadership and to turn the
tide of the twenty-year HIV/AIDS pandemic. The sudden availability
of low cost anti-retroviral drugs in low-income countries has
focused the world's attention and provided an opportunity to raise
the resources and achieve the political commitment needed to stop
HIV/AIDS. We will not have this opportunity again. The United
States must therefore take the lead in building the Global Fund
for HIV/AIDS and galvanizing a collaborative international
response to HIV/AIDS.
Sincerely,
[The names of the 72 faculty members and 87 students signing this
statement will be available in the web archive version of this
posting, at http://www.africapolicy.org/docs01/aids0105.htm]
***************************************************************
WHO Waters Down Brazilian Proposals For Cheap Drugs
United Nations UNWIRE, May 21, 2001
http://www.unfoundation.org/unwire
The World Health Organization, meeting in Geneva for its annual
assembly, Saturday approved a US- and EU-sponsored resolution
urging global cooperation to fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic but fell
short of approving Brazilian proposals to make inexpensive generic
drugs more widely available.
The approved resolution asks WHO Director-General Gro Harlem
Brundtland to "maintain close collaboration with the international
community and the private sector with the aim of improving the
availability of medicines for HIV/AIDS, including anti-retroviral
therapy."
The European Union, the United States and other countries objected
to the Brazilian proposals, saying the WHO has neither the
authority nor the resources to tackle trade and patent issues.
Countries objecting to the Brazilian plan called instead for the
World Trade Organization to continue to handle the issues. Health
activists accused authorities of placing commercial interests
before people's lives.
"This is almost like a step backward," said Ellen't Hoen of
Medecins Sans Frontieres. "It doesn't add anything to what was
adopted two years ago," she said. "What I find very peculiar is
that so many countries expressed their concerns about intellectual
property, patents and drug prices, but none of that is reflected in
the resolution."
An early Brazilian proposal had called for the WHO to actively
promote HIV/AIDS drug access around the globe and set up a price
databank that would allow countries to compare prices Brazil also
sought to have AIDS treatment recognized as a human rights issue
(http://cnn.com/2001/WORLD/americas/05/19/brazil.aids.reut).
************************************************************
DRAFT RESOLUTION
Proposed by Brazilian Delegation to the Fifty-fourth World Health
Assembly, May 14-22, 2001
[excerpts only; full draft resolution will be available at web
archive version of this posting:
http://www.africapolicy.org/docs01/aids0105.htm]
HIV/AIDS
The Fifty-fourth World Health Assembly: Considering that the AIDS
epidemic has become one of the biggest threats to public health in
the world, that this has reached pandemic levels, involving over 36
million people and that the poor and developing countries are the
most seriously affected by it, as noted in Resolution 54/283 of the
United Nations General Assembly; ...
Bearing in mind that new techniques, especially those related to
new antiretroviral drugs, must be considered as a Human Rights
issue and therefore should be available on an equitable basis for
all countries and for the universe of people living with HIV and
AIDS, as was agreed at the 57th World Human Rights Conference;
Considering that treatment of HIV/AIDS provides a positive
incentive for individuals to submit to voluntary counseling and HIV
testing, which in turn dramatically increases the efficacy of
anti-HIV prevention and education efforts necessary to retard the
advance of the pandemic.
Considering that HIV/AIDS affects women with special severity.
Considering that levels of international aid finance to support
HIV/AIDS programs in poor countries has been greatly incommensurate
with the prevalence of the pandemic, at approximately $5 annually
per HIV-infected person in poor countries. ...
Ratifying:
1. The Declaration of the 3rd Summit of the Americas, which in its
paragraph 25 states that good health and equality of access to
medical care and to health systems, together with medical drugs at
accessible prices, are vital for human development and for the
implementation of new political, economic and social objectives;
2. The Declaration of the Head of African States in Abuja, Nigeria
on 27 April 2001, which in its paragraph 29 calls upon the
International Community to put into operation a Global Fund against
AIDS with the aim inter alia of providing access to antiretroviral
therapy for peoples affected by the epidemic;
3. The 57th World Human Rights Conference which declared that
access to medical drugs and especially access to antiretroviral
drugs was a question of Human Rights;
Calls Upon Member States to:
1. Make every effort in order to guarantee that the access to
antiretroviral and anti-opportunistic infection drugs should have
as its point of reference the principle of equity, thus
guaranteeing supply and prices compatible with the social and
economic circumstances of individual countries as well as the
degree of HIV prevalence in each country ...
4. Establish health policies which promote access to drugs through:
a) Policy initiatives which embrace the right to use technical and
intellectual capacity for the in-country production of AIDS drugs,
under the auspices of the agreements reached within the bounds of
international law, such as the TRIPS agreement;
b) Support for the establishment and financing of an International
Fund for the promotion of access to antiretroviral and
anti-opportunistic infection drugs, based upon the principle of
equity;
c) Implantation of a policy to facilitate the supply of drugs,
including the production and distribution of generic drugs and the
negotiation of prices with pharmaceutical drugs companies, in
accordance with the social and economic development profiles of
each country.
5. Guarantee participation by people living with HIV and AIDS in
the formulation of national policies as regards access to drugs.
6. Promote social control at the national level so as to guarantee
better quality control over antiretroviral drugs.
7. Provide international aid finance against HIV/AIDS as grants,
not loans, to the least developed countries.
Requests the Director General to:
1. Support, and participate in, the creation of an international
Fund to guarantee access to antiretroviral and anti-opportunistic
infection drugs, particularly for poor and developing countries,
based on the principle of equity. That this Fund should make drugs
available at different prices in line with Social Development
Indices and according to the prevalence of HIV in different
countries, so that a policy based upon the principle of equity can
be attained.
2. Establish an expert committee under WHO auspices, consisting of
an expanded membership of physicians, scientists, public health
practitioners, and non-governmental AIDS advocates (including
people with AIDS), drawn from both developed and developing Member
States, to review and assess on a case-by-case basis the
scientific, medical and operational feasibility of proposals
submitted by developing country Member States for funding payable
out of the International Fund.
3. Oppose any international proposals which would provide funding
out of the International Fund on the basis of interest-bearing
loans, rather than outright grants, to least developed Member
States or other Member States needing significant financial
assistance because of he scale of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in relation
to their domestic wealth.
4. Create a Drugs Prices Data Bank, containing information about
drugs procurement and manufacturers, with a view to providing data
for the management of national policies in respect of access to
antiretroviral drugs and anti-opportunistic infection drugs.
5. Create parameters jointly with the Member States and the drugs
industry, including producers of generic drugs, in order to
establish a worldwide policy of differentiated prices for drugs
according to social, economic, and epidemiological indicators, with
the principle of equity as a basic reference point.
6. Create ways and means to permit better monitoring and quality
control of antiretroviral drugs. ...
************************************************************
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