Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia - Friday June 18, 1999
Lisa Richwine

Protesters disrupted Gore's speech Wednesday announcing he was running for president and confronted him at two campaign events in New Hampshire and on Wall Street Thursday.

"We will continue to draw attention to Gore's actions around South Africa and his unconscionable greed until we see signs that policies are changing," Asia Russell of ACT-UP Philadelphia said Friday.

Joined by Ralph Nader-led consumer groups, AIDS activists charge that Gore is working on behalf of U.S. drug companies to keep South Africa from exercising trade powers that could make cheaper drugs available to poor AIDS victims. A Gore spokesman disputed their charges, saying the vice president had championed the fight against AIDS in Africa and would support measures that did not violate international rules on patent protection.

"The vice president believes we need to pursue all available means to deliver high-quality affordable medicines to those who need them, and we need to do this within the legal limits established" by the World Trade Organization.

Portions of the South African Medicines Act allow officials to order cheaper, generic copies of medications, even while they are still under patent, by granting "compulsory licenses" to local manufacturers.

The law, now tied up by a court challenge, would also let South Africa import cheaper drugs from a third party, a practice known as parallel importing. Consumer and AIDS groups say both moves are legal under WTO rules and could bring relief to some of the three million South Africans with HIV or AIDS. The U.S. pharmaceutical industry, however, says the law is written so vaguely that it could violate international patent rights, a key to securing drug companies' revenue to invest in future drug research.

Gore discussed the law with South Africa's new president Thabo Mbeki at meetings last August and February when Mbeki was deputy president.

At a later news conference, Gore sported an AIDS ribbon made with African beads given to him by Mbeki, a symbol of the leaders' shared bond in fighting AIDS, the Gore spokesman said.

"It is hard to believe that the deputy president would have made the vice president a gift of an AIDS ribbon done in African bead work if there had been anything but a partnership between them on AIDS," the spokesman said. AIDS activists view Gore's role differently. During his announcement speech in Carthage, Tenn., Wednesday, 15 protesters chanted "Gore is killing Africans, AIDS drugs now."

At a similar disruption at a New Hampshire college Thursday, Gore responded by saying "the crisis of AIDS in Africa is one that should command the attention of people in the United States and around the world."

Activists said they were encouraged that their concerns were beginning to be heard. They have secured a meeting next week with White House AIDS policy adviser Sandra Thurman, and last week won an audience before the President's Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.

"We want the administration to come forward and say it's not going to oppose attempts by developing countries to do parallel imports or compulsory licensing," said AIDS activist Eric Sawyer. "That's what we're pushing for, and we won't give up until our government agrees."
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