Article: South Africa's Ambassador Sisulu Defends Her Government's AIDS Policy

12 March 2001

Article: South Africa's Ambassador Sisulu Defends Her Government's AIDS Policy

Addresses anti-PhRMA demonstration in the United States

By Jim Fisher-Thompson
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- Hearkening back to the anti-apartheid demonstrations of the 1980s, South African Ambassador to the United States Sheila Sisulu welcomed HIV/AIDS activists gathered outside her office March 12, saying, "Again, you protest for justice outside this embassy." Only this time it was for medical rather than racial justice.

Sisulu addressed some 300 demonstrators representing a coalition of organizations that believe a lawsuit brought by 39 of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies in South Africa's High Court, seeking to protect their patent rights, is wrong and unfair -- a position with which the envoy said she agrees.

She told them that her government is countering the legal action because "access to health care is a right enshrined in our constitution. The South African government intends to ensure that every citizen, not just a privileged minority, has access to an acceptable quality of basic health care services."

The lawsuit challenges legislation passed by the South African Parliament in 1997 called "the Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendment Act." The act, if implemented, would allow the South African ministry of health to order the compulsory licensing of locally manufactured or imported drugs that are cheaper than those offered by such companies as GlaxoSmithKline, Hoffman-La Roche, Merck, and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

South Africa's government has acknowledged that it has one of the highest HIV/AIDS infection rates in the world. A recent United Nations report indicated that as more people develop AIDS and die, over the next 10 years the disease could reduce South Africa's gross domestic product (GDP) by 17 percent and take away $22,000 million from the national economy.

President Thabo Mbeki's administration is fighting the case in the High Court, Sisulu further explained, because the drug law "is seen by my government as a critical instrument for achieving our objective of providing affordable health care services through the provision of safe and cost-effective drugs. We have no choice but to defend our position, since the lives of so many of our people depend on it."

Representatives of the drug companies have countered by saying the licensing law would also apply to drugs for other diseases, such as cholera, and that it is nothing more than an attempt by South African business interests, in league with manufacturers of cheap drugs in places like India, to circumvent World Trade Organization (WTO) patent laws.

The High Court in the meantime has postponed hearing the pharmaceutical case until late April.

Groups at the embassy protest included ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) of Philadelphia, Oxfam America, Doctors Without Borders, Health GAP Coalition, and the African Policy Information Center. Outside the embassy the protesters displayed their solidarity with the South African government with signs that said "Drug Company: Greed Kills" while chanting, "Saving lives is not a crime -- drop the lawsuit now!"

John Bell, a spokesman for ACT UP of Philadelphia who is himself HIV-positive, said the lawsuit brought by the drug companies "will not work. We stand strong and prepared to continue this fight with the government of South Africa. We are united in opposition to the deadly greed of the pharmaceutical industries that keeps drugs out of the hands of millions of people while the wealthier countries enjoy access."

Touching on the delicate issue of the WTO and the preservation of international patent rights, which the U.S. government believes is critical to the smooth implementation of globalization, Sisulu said: "It is worth noting that in September 1999, the governments of the United States and South Africa concluded a series of negotiations with the announcement that we had found 'common ground' with respect to my government's intended implementation of the Medicines Act."

She added that "the South African government gave its assurances then that, as we move forward to bring improved health care to our citizens, we intend doing so in a manner which is consistent with our international commitments that fully protect intellectual property rights."

After a half hour in front of the embassy, the protesters boarded buses that had brought them from Philadelphia and drove to the headquarters of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the drug industry's lobbying arm, where they protested against its drug company clients.