Patents or Poverty? New Debate over Lack of AIDS Care in Africa

A new debate over the AIDS epidemic in Africa has erupted, pitting traditional foes against each other: drug companies vs. AIDS activists. Marshaled by a recent article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the foes face-off as the November 9th meeting in Doha, Qatar, of the World Trade Organization (WTO) approaches.

The JAMA article is co-authored by Dr. Amir Attaran, director of international health research at Harvard University's Center for International Development and Lee Gillespie-White, the director of the International Intellectual Property Institute. It reports a study addressing the 15 recognized antiretroviral drugs for the treatment of AIDS and the patents by their makers in Africa's 53 countries. Noting that since only 22 percent of the 795 patents available have been awarded, the authors conclude that patents cannot be a barrier to the treatment of AIDS in Africa. If the barrier is not patents, the authors maintain, then it must be poverty that stands in the way.

The World Trade Organization is under intense pressure at its meeting to affirm new rules ensuring that patents could be ignored during public health emergencies. A coalition of 60 nations calling itself the "Africa Group" views the JAMA article as ammunition for the drug companies -- largely in the United States, Japan and Switzerland -- to resist the new rules by pointing to large discounts that have been offered by the pharmaceutical industry to the poorest countries.

Accused by AIDS activists of tailoring and timing his study to serve the WTO and the drug industry, Attaran, called the tone of the attack "sickening." He said that he did not receive any money for the study and that it was only "a narrow case study of one drug category in Africa in 2001."

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