News Flash: Brazil; South Africa Lawsuit Letter

1. The World Trade Organization is convening a panel on a United States complaint against Brazil's internationally praised AIDS program, which manufactures low-cost generic copies of antiretroviral drugs and makes them available without charge to patients. "The U.S. complaint threatens the Brazilian AIDS policy, which includes providing free drugs to HIV infected people. The lives of hundreds of thousands of patients depend on this system," says Bernard Pecoul, director of MSF's (Doctors Without Borders') Access to Essential Medicines campaign. "The U.S. action will also intimidate countries which would like to take up Brazil's offer to help them produce AIDS medicine." More than 120 Brazilian AIDS organizations have called for support of the Brazilian program.

   More information will be available at: http://www.globaltreatmentaccess.org

2. AIDS activists and organizations are circulating a community sign-on letter to all of the pharmaceutical companies that are parties to the March 5 lawsuit against South Africa. The letter and instructions for signing are at: http://www.globaltreatmentaccess.org

Copyright 2001 by John S. James. Permission granted for noncommercial reproduction, provided that our address and phone number are included if more than short quotations are used.

Back to the AIDS Treatment News January 26, 2001 contents page.