While AIDS kills millions worldwide
Drug giants, U.S. gov't guilty of racism, genocide
By Preston
Wood
While the global AIDS epidemic continues to spiral out of
control and millions suffer and die, U.S. and European
pharmaceuticals that hold patents on effective AIDS drugs have
engaged in a feeding frenzy of profits.
When pressed about the stranglehold of the giant
pharmaceuticals, an unidentified U.S. trade official recently
stated bluntly that the economic considerations of global
markets outweighed any call for a global humanitarian response
to the AIDS holocaust. is not about health," he said. (Feb. 3
New York Times)
Cipla, Ltd., a company in India that is a major manufacturer
of generic drugs, has now offered to supply triple-therapy drug
"cocktails" to agencies in Africa striving to set up programs
to prevent and treat AIDS. The price per patient will be only
$350 per year.
By contrast, the usual cost for these treatments in the U.S.
is $10,000-$15,000 per year. This outrageous price is virtually
unattainable for poor and oppressed people.
"This is the way to break up the stranglehold of the
multinationals," said Dr. Yusuf K. Hamied, chairperson of
Cipla.
The lives of tens of millions of Africans are at stake.
Seventeen million Africans have already died as a result of
AIDS or AIDS-related infections. Recent UN studies confirm that
over 25 million Africans are currently infected with HIV.
Millions more will become infected unless the epidemic is
brought under control through a comprehensive global
effort.
Meanwhile, health-care activists in the U.S. are expressing
alarm about the rising incidents of AIDS infection in this
country.
A study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention in Baltimore, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York
and Seattle found recently that 30 percent of young, gay Black
men are infected with HIV.
The study found that in the U.S., 12.3 percent of all gay
and bisexual men aged 23 to 29 are HIV positive. Fifteen
percent of Latino, 7 percent of white, and 3 percent of Asian
gay and bisexual men are currently infected.
Of those infected, only 29 percent knew they were infected
and less than 25 percent were receiving treatment.
In spite of these shocking figures, the new Bush
administration moved quickly to close federal offices on AIDS
and race relations. After a firestorm of public outrage, the
administration stated that the offices would not close, but
failed to articulate any real commitment to fighting AIDS or
pursuing policies to eliminate racism.
Claudia French, executive director of AIDS Action--an
education and lobbying group--stated, "We are baffled by
doublespeak from the White House. It sounds like they are
effectively closing it, but not saying it."
Moving swiftly to define the character of his new
administration, Bush's first major policy announcement was the
denial of U.S. aid to family-planning organizations abroad that
inform women about medical options, including abortion.
This vicious attack on women everywhere is a death sentence
for millions of children who will be born infected with HIV.
The Bush policy will result in not providing AIDS education,
abortion counseling, condoms or other forms of contraception to
women around the world. Part of the human tragedy of the global
AIDS epidemic is the millions of children who are AIDS orphans
and who are infected with HIV.
AIDS & the profit system
Why has this crisis come so far? Why have so many died?
The answer lies in the nature of the economic system that
still dominates the globe. Global capitalism continues to
strike out everywhere to expand its markets. Built-in laws of
capitalist expansion predominate over all concerns of human
well-being and health.
While governments around the world--from Brazil to Thailand
to the African continent--and inner cities in the U.S. are
reeling from this health emergency, U.S. and European
pharmaceuticals are reaping obscene and criminal profits.
By maintaining a stranglehold on patents for new and
effective AIDS treatments, millions are being denied a chance
to live out their lives with the most effective treatments
available. All in the name of corporate profits.
With the help of Al Gore, Bill Clinton, and now George W.
Bush, giant drug firms like Bristol-Myers Squibb,
Glaxo-Wellcome, Boerhinger Ingelhim and others have fought to
defend their ability to make billions in profits from the
suffering of people around the world.
Former Vice President Gore, for instance, acted as point
person for these drug giants by putting pressure on the
government of South Africa to keep it from going ahead with a
plan to impose compulsory licensing on drugs so that others
could make them more cheaply.
In a related effort to undermine the huge drug companies,
Brazil recently infuriated the big cartels and their flunkies
in Washington by beginning to manufacture the anti-AIDS
drugs.
Through frantic lobbying and massive campaign donations, the
giant pharmaceuticals are determined to stop this precedent.
The U.S. filed a complaint against Brazil with the notorious
World Trade Organization in an effort to maintain its monopoly
on the life-saving drugs.
Brazil suffers from a high rate of HIV infection--160,000
infected--but is seen as a model of prevention and treatment
with extensive social programs. The current rate of infection
in Brazil is only 0.6 percent.
The Brazilian Health Ministry charged that the U.S.
complaint puts at risk its renowned AIDS program that
distributes the drugs free to all.
Ultimately, the AIDS crisis even does harm to the capitalist
class around the world. The disruption of business as usual,
the crisis of care and the creation of millions of orphaned
children ultimately cost billions.
In large part it is the racism that is such a component part
of capitalism, as well as discrimination against gays and
bisexuals, women and all those who are afflicted with this
disease that has contributed to the epidemic and allowed it to
continue to burgeon out of control.
Bringing an epidemic such as AIDS under control requires a
comprehensive, centralized plan that includes non-competitive
research for a cure, real prevention, education, and services
and care for those who are suffering.
Because imperialism as a system is bound to the laws of
expand or die, where profits rather than social needs prevail,
the ultimate solution lies in the struggle here and abroad
against the corporate plunderers. These forces, working
together, will eventually bring the terrible crisis called AIDS
to an end.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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