Several thousand demonstrators, including members of the African National Congress, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), church groups, Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, and AIDS activist organizations, marched to support the South African government on the opening day of a trial in which 39 drug companies have taken the government to court.

At issue is the 1997 Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendment Act. The act, which has not gone into effect pending the outcome of the drug companies' court challenge, would allow Pretoria to produce or import generic versions of drugs at much lower prices than currently charged by the patent holders--the capitalist drug monopolies. It would also establish a pricing committee that would force companies to justify what they charge for medicines.

The Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Association of South Africa is the leading complainant in the suit. It represents local companies and subsidiaries of the drug giants, including Boehringer-Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Roche.

More than 25 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are infected with HIV/AIDS. In South Africa alone, about 4 million people, nearly 10 percent of the population, are estimated to have contracted HIV. Drugs that extend the lives of those infected are available, but at a cost that is far out of reach for the vast majority of workers and peasants in Africa.

The pharmaceutical giants have sought, unsuccessfully, to keep the public focus of the case on the legalities of patent law and threats to "intellectual property." The protesters, however, made sure that the judge, and people around the world, understood the fight was about super-profits versus the right to health care. "We thank the efforts of our members, whose voices have ensured that the courts have understood the importance of this matter," said Joyce Pekane, deputy president of COSATU, as the protests got underway.

As the case opened, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), an AIDS activist organization here, applied for "friend of the court" status in support of the government's case. On the second day of the trial, held in the Pretoria High Court, Judge Bernard Ngoepe accepted the TAC's application over the objection of drug company lawyers, who then sought a four-month delay. The judge gave them less than half that time, and the trial will resume April 18.

"Having been accepted as a 'friend of the court,' TAC will give evidence about how brand-name medicines are unaffordable for millions of people living with HIV in South Africa," said Zackie Achmat, chairperson of the TAC. "For the first time, the pharmaceutical industry will have to justify to South Africa and to the world why their drug prices are so high and why their patents should be so aggressively protected, when millions of people are dying and cheaper drugs exist."

A joint statement from COSATU and the TAC points out that since 1998, when the companies filed their challenge delaying the act, "more than 400,000 people have died of AIDS-related illness. Most of them could not afford expensive drugs," while "in 2000 alone, drug companies around the world made sales of more than $315 billion--more that the gross domestic product of all SADC [Southern African Development Community] countries."

Business Week, in its online edition of March 7, reported that "70 percent of the world's AIDS population lives in Africa. Yet that continent accounts for less than 2 percent of HIV-drug sales." It continued: "The worst nightmare for the drug companies is that the fight will eventually come back to the U.S.... Eventually, the industry fears that there'll be a push to lower drug prices in the U.S., which still accounts for the overwhelming majority of the industry's profits. The drugmakers' high profit margins could be placed in jeopardy. Given that drug prices are such a hot-button issue in the U.S., the South African trial suddenly doesn't seem so far away."

In an effort to protect their markets, pharmaceutical monopolies have made a range of highly publicized offers over the past year to sell drugs at discounted--though still exorbitant--prices to African governments. They have also acted to quash offers of lower-priced generics by other manufacturers that would undercut their patents and profits. The South African act would, for example, enable Pretoria to purchase generics from companies in India and Brazil at substantially lower prices.

One such company, Cipla, based in Bombay, has offered HIV/AIDS drugs to African governments at a cost of about $600 per person per year--40 percent off the lowest price charged by the pharmaceutical monopolies.

On March 7, Cipla applied to the South African government to offer eight generic AIDS drugs that until now have only been available from the multinational patentholders at high prices. On the same day, U.S.-based Merck said it would cut the sales price of two of its drugs--Crixivan and Stocrin--to $600 and $500 respectively per patient per year in South Africa and certain other countries. Both drugs are taken in combination with other drugs as an HIV cocktail. Crixivan retails for more than $5,000 for an annual treatment in the United States.

Today in South Africa, a combination of drugs to help stem the onset of AIDS in HIV-positive patients costs the equivalent of about $950 a month. Many higher-paid industrial workers are lucky to take home $250 a month.  
 
Pressure from Washington
The U.S. government began putting pressure on Pretoria to withdraw the offending legislation even before it was approved. Former U.S. president William Clinton, on a visit here three years ago, made clear to then-president Nelson Mandela that Washington sharply opposed anything that would impinge on the prerogatives of U.S. pharmaceutical capital. As a result, Pretoria was for a time put on the U.S. trade representative's "watch list" of countries that could face trade sanctions. The European Union also protested against the legislation.

However, Washington found it politically expedient to drop the threat of sanctions, as long as Pretoria was not judged to be violating World Trade Organization agreements on intellectual property. In late February the Bush administration signaled it would stick with this policy.

The March 9 Mail & Guardian, published in Johannesburg, reports that the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which speaks for the drug monopolies, has requested that Pretoria be put back on the watch list for possible sanctions because it stands by provisions of the medicines act. The paper reports that a representative of the association indicated a decision whether to put South Africa on the list would be made by the end of April.

The March 5 demonstration in Pretoria proceeded from the court to the U.S. embassy, where protesters tried to deliver a memorandum. However, U.S. official Robert Godec refused to walk through the crowd to receive it. It had to be delivered to him.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home