The Bay Area Reporter - December 10, 1999
Liz Highleyman

In Seattle, some 50,000 demonstrators gathered to protest a meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Surrounded by riot police, National Guard soldiers, and clouds of tear gas, protesters spoke out against international trade rules that harm the environment and hurt low-income workers.

A number of protesters in Seattle focused on trade issues as they relate to drug patents and access. WTO member countries must agree to honor foreign patents. However, WTO trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) agreements allow for compulsory licensing, under which countries may locally manufacture less expensive generic versions of patented drugs, and parallel importing, which allows countries to import drugs from the cheapest source. The U.S. has stronger rules protecting pharmaceutical company patents and has threatened trade sanctions against Thailand, South Africa, and other countries that have attempted to make generic drugs available.

The international group Medicins san Frontie'res (Doctors without Borders) held a forum and press conference on drug availability for poor nations. Launching its "Access to Essential Medicines" campaign, the group released a statement reading, "At the start of this new WTO negotiating round, we demand that existing TRIPS rules allowing developing countries to produce and import medicines be applied without the threat of trade retaliation." The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) also made drug access a major focus. According to IGLHRC Director of Public Education Jamie Balboa, the U.S. government has "manipulated trade regulations to keep life-saving medicines accessible only to the most wealthy in the world to ensure profits for the pharmaceutical industry."

Across the country in Washington, D.C., some 400 activists from ACT UP/Philadelphia and other groups associated with the Health GAP Coalition held a march and rally in front of the White House. Chanting "Pills cost pennies, greed costs lives," demonstrators marched past the offices of pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb, which has opposed efforts in Thailand to develop a generic version of ddI. Demonstrators presented President Bill Clinton with a golden urn, a tradition started at the 1996 International AIDS Conference in Vancouver; the urns are awarded to companies and individuals whose misguided policies and greed are detrimental to people with HIV. Ten protesters who tried to chain themselves to the White House fence were arrested.

In conjunction with the bicoastal actions, the Health GAP Coalition released a white paper that described several cases in which the U.S. government has, according to the authors, put "drug company concerns ahead of public health" in international trade negotiations. The coalition has asked the WTO to form a working group on drug access and to consult with the World Health Organization on issues relating to patents on medicines.

Speaking to the WTO delegates in Seattle, Clinton indicated that the U.S. may relax its rules against compulsory licensing and parallel importing, particularly in the case of AIDS drugs. "Intellectual property protections are very important to a modern economy," he said, "but where the HIV and AIDS epidemics are involved à the U.S. will henceforth implement its healthcare and trade policies in a manner that ensures people in the poorest countries won't have to go without medicine they so desperately need." The administration said that U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky would work with the Department of Health and Human Services to develop a "flexible" method for deciding on a case-by-case basis whether to grant poor countries access to less expensive drugs during health emergencies.
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