FYI ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 22:10:16 -0700 From: David Mozer <[log in to unmask]> Reply-To: [log in to unmask] -----Original Message----- From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2000 3:42 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: ACTION: HIV/AIDS sign-on letter to President Clinton ADNA Action: 000817 Message from: HIV/AIDS and Health Infrastructure Working Group of ADNA For contact info see also: http://www.africapolicy.org/adna.htm Dear ADNA members, Following find the revised letter from the newly formed HIV/AIDS and Health Infrastructure Working Group of ADNA for your signature. The deadline for signatures is 3:00pm Friday Aug 18 for delivery to President Clinton prior to the Press Briefing Monday morning Aug 21. This will be organizational names only, no individual or title needed. Please excuse the short notice and RSVP as quickly as you can. Feel free to share this with your networks. We will repost the final with all signatures to the full list as well. Thank you to all who provided suggestions for the revisions and we hope we have faithfully incorporated them all in this final version. For those who are outside the DC commuting area and interested in connecting to the HIV/AIDS and Health Infrastructure working group, please contact Leon Spencer at the Washington Office on Africa. ([log in to unmask]) Regards, Vicki Ferguson ADNA Communications Facilitator President William Clinton The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear President Clinton, We write to express our concern over the announcement of Export- Import Bank loans to African nations for AIDS medications. This approach will do little to address the pandemic on the continent and will only worsen Africa's current debt crisis. The HIV pandemic is a humanitarian crisis, not a marketing opportunity for US pharmaceutical products. The US, through loans from the Export-Import Bank, is asking African governments to mortgage the future of their peoples by taking on increased debt, at commercial rates, to pay for badly needed medicines to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Indeed, many African countries suffering from the pandemic are so poor they do not even qualify for loans at commercial rates. At a time when international pressure, and G-8 commitments, have focused on lifting Africa's crippling debt, what Africa needs is grants, not new loans. Substantial grants are needed to increase prevention, testing and treatment programs, build social service infrastructures, purchase and provide affordable medicines, and increase the capacity of communities to cope with the effects of this pandemic over a long period of time. Because loan recipients would be required to purchase US-made drugs under this plan, the primary beneficiaries would be the US pharmaceutical giants, even if AIDS drugs are sold at a substantial discount. The minimum wage for many Africans affected by HIV/AIDS is less than $50 per month (as is the case of Kenya); thus, even the slashed prices which the Export-Import Bank presumes will prove inadequate. The combination of debt and AIDS has crippled the economies of many countries in Africa. The debt crisis has extracted scarce resources from impoverished people and increased the burdens of the poorest households as their governments attempt to meet creditors demands. The United Nations AIDS programme estimates that there are 33.4 million people globally with HIV/AIDS. Of these, approximately 23 million are in Africa. In Zambia alone, where 20 percent of the population is now estimated to be HIV positive, the Zambian government spends $17 per person on health annually and spends $30 per person on debt service to western creditors. The world's richest nations have promised debt relief ( which African countries have yet to see) and the U.S. recently authorised only $570 million per year for two years for AIDS and TB research through the Global AIDS and Tuberculosis Relief Act. This is a pitiful figure when compared to U.N. estimates that approximately $2.5 billion a year is needed just to mount an aggressive and effective campaign against AIDS on the African continent alone. What is even more shameful is the additional debt burden of the $1 billion loan fund at market rates through the Export-Import Bank this approach would create. This would only benefit U.S. firms selling AIDS drugs, equipment and services to African countries and the wealthy elite of those countries. Pharmaceutical companies are keen to avoid the entirely legal prospect of local manufacture or import of generic versions of their drugs. Their announcement two months ago of plans to cut drug prices reflects that, but details have yet to be provided by any of the major drug companies. Instead of this mistaken Export-Import Bank initiative, your administration should be urging U.S. pharmaceutical companies to demonstrate a long-term commitment to addressing the crisis with concrete action and real benefits on the ground as their priority, not their profit margin or market share. The US would do better to come through on its debt relief commitments immediately and pledge substantial new grant resources to address the pandemic. This plan fails completely on both counts. The US Congress is currently debating what to do with an historical budget surplus, and nowhere in the present proposals is there any reflection of the US as a responsible member of the larger international community. A significant step toward combatting the HIV/AIDS crisis would be to dedicate a modest 5% of the US annual budget surplus to a global health emergency fund. Such a contribution - approximately $9.5 billion this year - would send a signal in favour of global responsibility rather than one of global corporate exploitation of suffering, and would provide the leadership for other wealthy nations to place a sorely absent emphasis on the health and well-being of the whole human community. We look forward to your response and to working together to address these critical global health needs. Respectfully submitted: Organizational Names here *** This message is distributed from the HIV/AIDS and Health Infrastructure Working Group for the Advocacy Network for Africa (ADNA). Vicki Lynn Ferguson Advocacy Network for Africa Communications Facilitator c/o Africa Policy Information Center 110 Maryland Ave, NE #509 Washington, DC 20002 Ph: 202-546-7961 Fax: 202-546-1545 E-mail: [log in to unmask] Web: http://www.africapolicy.org/adna --------------------------------------------------------------------<e|- GET A NEXTCARD VISA, in 30 seconds! Get rates of 2.9% Intro or 9.9% Ongoing APR* and no annual fee! Apply NOW! http://click.egroups.com/1/7872/12/_/23029/_/966575361/ --------------------------------------------------------------------|e>- Our next meeting is Wednesday, August 23, Safeco Jackson St Center, 306 23rd Ave S Suite 200 @ Jackson St, Seattle 7:00 p.m. WSAN business meeting 8:00 p.m. Program: Garfield H.S. Computers For the World Project. We meet the forth Wednesday of the month. 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