Bush's AIDS 'Gift' Has Been Seized by Industry Giants
by Naomi Klein


Fighting AIDS was supposed to show George Bush's softer side. "Seldom has history offered a greater opportunity to do so much for so many," he said in his State of the Union address in January. He has since reconsidered, deciding instead to offer a few more opportunities to the few. First he handed the top job of his global AIDS initiative to a Big Pharma boss, then he broke his $3bn promise of AIDS relief. And now there are concerns that he may sabotage a plan to send cheap drugs to countries ravaged by AIDS.

In August, the World Trade Organization announced a new deal on drug patents that was supposed to give poor countries facing health problems the right to import generic drugs. But the deal seemed unworkable: the United States, at the behest of the pharmaceutical lobby, had successfully pushed for so many conditions that the agreement exploded from a straightforward 52 words to a sprawling 3,200-word maze.

Countries wanting to import cheap generics must jump through multiple hoops to prove they are truly in need, unable to afford patented drugs and incapable of producing the medicines domestically. Meanwhile, there is no guarantee that there will be a sufficient supply of drugs for them to buy, since the deal also puts up hurdles for countries wanting to export. "A 'gift' tightly bound in red tape," declared a coalition of NGOs, including Médecins Sans Frontières and Third World Network.

Perhaps that's why US trade representative Robert Zoellick praised the agreement. So did Harvey Bale, the premier spokesman for Big Pharma and director general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations. Bale, who had lobbied against the deal, told Reuters that the latest neutering resulted in "a fairly balanced text" that "adds clarity"