United Press International - November 1, 2001
Kelly Hearn

The protests, organized by the AIDS activist group ACTUP based in Philadelphia, comes a week before a key World Trade Organization meeting in Doha, Qatar, and days after U.S. officials threatened to break a patent for the antibiotic Cipro, forcing German drug maker Bayer Corp. to lower its prices.

"(President) Bush talks of breaking the Cipro patent after four people died (of anthrax). But he refused to extend AIDS drugs to 30 million AIDS suffers, most of whom are black," said Asia Russell of Health Gap, an HIV/AIDS drug activist organization. "It is a racist policy."

Global trade laws specify that a country can break patents when public health is endangered. But critics argue no country has included AIDS in that category of circumstances because Washington, bowing under pressure from drug companies, has fought such attempts.

Chantinkha Nkhoma, an African AIDS activist, condemned Zoellick's "ruthless efforts" to derail attempts by countries, such as South Africa and Brazil, to bend patent rules for the sake of public health.

"I live in a rich country so I have access to medications that keep me healthy," said Joey Thomas, an HIV-positive activist from Philadelphia. "But in countries like Uganda, they don't have this. They have open air markets that have been replaced by the coffin selling business."

Many of the some 400 activists were drawn from drug rehabilitation groups in Philadelphia.

"We want the U.S. to use its economic clout to stand up for people with AIDS and for working people," said Thea Lee, a representative of the AFL-CIO. Lee, who plans to attend the WTO meeting next week, accused the trade group of holding its meeting in Qatar to intentionally discourage dissent.

"The WTO has to take its meeting to the ends of the Earth" to avoid protesters, Lee said.

In its literature, ACTUP called Washington's failure to break Bayer's Cipro patent and its opposition to proposals to loosen AIDS drug patents "a systematic administration policy of valuing patent monopolies of drug companies more than human lives."

ACTUP argues Washington could more effectively build domestic stockpiles of anthrax-fighting antibiotics by setting aside Bayer's patent and buying generic brands. The government has moved to purchase other generic anthrax drugs, including doxycycline and penicillin.

Some 52 impoverished countries, led by African nations and Brazil, want an official WTO declaration stating that nothing in that body's fundamental patent guidelines, known as TRIPS, stops a country from sidestepping patents when public health is endanged. They also are asking that countries taking such measures not be punished by developed nations, such as America, or by drug companies.

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