Bangkok Int'l AIDS Conference
'Bush lies, millions die'
By Minnie Bruce Pratt
Chanting "Bush lies, millions die," protesters
at the International AIDS Con ference in Bangkok on July 14
shouted down Randall Tobias, the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator
and the former CEO of pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly &
Co.
An estimated 1,000 activists staged a sit-down protest
outside the conference. Some 30 people also stormed the main
speaking area with banners that read "Patient rights, not
patent rights," and stopped a speech by the head of the drug
company colossus, Pfizer.
The focus of their outrage is a deadly and hypocritical U.S.
AIDS policy that promises help and delivers nothing.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services cut the
number of U.S. representatives to the Bangkok conference to 60,
drastically down from the 236 people who attended the 2002
Inter national AIDS Conference in Barcelona.
Because of the cuts, seven Centers for Disease Control
scientists scheduled to speak on studies about "men who have
sex with men" were stopped from attending, and of the hundreds
of other papers, organizers could only name four sessions that
addressed gay and bisexual men.
This is the first time the International AIDS Conference has
been held in an Asian developing country. China sent more than
500 delegates to the forum, 10 times more than the U.S.
delegation. (Al-Jazeera)
Millions die
AIDS is exponentially increasing into a global health
catastrophe. As many as 38 million people worldwide are
HIV-infected, with 25 million of those in Sub-Saharan Africa
and more than 7 million in Asia. (Al-Jazeera)
The pandemic has already claimed more than 28 million lives
since AIDS was identified in 1981.
People can expect to live, on average, less than 40 years if
they are born today in one of seven African countries with a
high rate of HIV infection, including Swazi land, Lesotho,
Zambia, Malawi, the Central African Republic and
Mozambique.
In Zimbabwe, life expectancy has dropped more than 40
percent since 1990, to 33.9 years. In South Africa, the
continent's economic powerhouse, the average is 48.8 years. (UN
Development Program Report, 2004)
HIV infection is growing at record rates in women and young
people under 25, who represent over one-third of people liv ing
with HIV and AIDS worldwide. Women are currently 48 percent of
HIV cases.
In the Asia Pacific region, a large increase is occurring in
women aged 15 to 29 whose husbands have become infected. (Gay
City News, July 15)
Bush lies--for profits
The Bush administration pledged $15 billion in 2003 to
combat AIDS for the following five years in Vietnam plus 14
countries in Africa and the Caribbean.
One-third of the 2003 U.S. funding for HIV prevention must
be spent on abstinence-only programs. Bush has set the official
U.S. health policy response to AIDS as an "ABC" approach. In a
recent speech in a Philadelphia church, he defined this as:
"Abstain, be faithful in marriage, and, when appropriate, use
condoms."
But a Columbia University study of 12,000 teenagers refuted
the claim that this approach can effectively stop sexually
transmitted diseases. The study found that those who pledged to
abstain from sex until marriage became infected at the same
rate as non-pledgers.
Money from the Bush AIDS package also mandates that funds
can only be spent to provide and administer drugs already
approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and marketed
by U.S. drug companies. The FDA has not approved any cheaper
generic AIDS drugs, which have been okayed by the World Health
Organization.
FDA-approved drugs usually cost $700 per person per year.
Generic drugs can cost as little as $150, according to Joia Muk
herjee, with Partners in Health in Haiti. The higher-priced,
anti-retroviral patented drugs, which can cut AIDS deaths, are
unaffordable in developing nations.
French President Jacques Chirac issued a written statement
to the July 14 Bangkok conference charging that the Bush
administration has pressured developing countries to stop
production of generic HIV drugs in exchange for free-trade
agreements.
Richard Parker, chair of the Depart ment of Socio-Medical
Sciences at Col umbia University, said: "The U.S. has got a bad
reputation all over the world as not defending the interest of
vulnerable people and communities, but instead of big
business." (New York Blade, July 16)
Reprinted from the July 29, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
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