Protesters erupted in celebration inside and outside the courtroom as drug company lawyers not only surrendered, but agreed to pay court costs of the defendant--the South African government.

The Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Association and 39 companies, among them drug giants Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, and others, withdrew their case against the Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendment Act. It was, in the words of one protester, "a complete climb down."

The act, signed into law by former South African president Nelson Mandela in 1997, was targeted for attack by the drug monopolies and various governments--particularly Washington and European Union (EU) states--while still in draft form.

The legislation will allow Pretoria to produce or import generic versions of all manner of medications at lower prices than currently charged by the patent holders, and establish a pricing committee to force companies to justify what they charge for drugs. The act had not gone into effect pending the outcome of the court challenge.

The derailing of the court case should boost the efforts of semicolonial governments to press the fight for more affordable medications. Brazil in particular now faces pressure from the World Trade Organization for its policy on production of generic AIDS medications.

The trial opened for two days in March, and was postponed for six weeks when the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), an AIDS activist organization, was allowed to support the government as a "friend of the court." The TAC planned to submit evidence on how the drug monopolies were preventing millions of people from obtaining life-saving drugs for HIV/AIDS. When the court reconvened on April 18, the judge granted a recess until the withdrawal was announced a day later.  
 
High prices 'must be condemned'
In an April 15 television interview with the South African Broadcasting Corporation, Mandela said, "I think the pharmaceuticals are exploiting the situation that exists in countries like South Africa--in the developing world--because they charge exorbitant prices which are beyond the capacity of the ordinary HIV/AIDS person. That is completely wrong and must be condemned."

To increase pressure on the government here, pharmaceutical multinationals closed factories and canceled investments in South Africa in the years leading up to the trial. They waged a campaign claiming that Pretoria intended to violate treaties dealing with drug patents, and lined up political support from imperialist governments.

However, all of this backfired from the moment the trial opened on March 5, as thousands of protesters from the African National Congress (ANC), Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), churches, and AIDS activist groups marched in several South African cities and abroad. They explained that millions of lives had been lost and are still threatened by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, particularly in Africa, where more than 25 million people are infected.

The protesters made sure everyone understood that the court challenge was about the greed of the drug companies, and their ability to ensure they could maintain monopoly pricing in the face of this disaster. Workers and farmers throughout the world, along with many people in the middle classes, could immediately identify with this struggle based on their own experience with the cold-blooded profits-before-health system. Even Washington and the EU began backing away from overt support to the drug companies.

"This is a victory not just for South Africa, but for Africa and the whole developing world. I would like to say thank you to the whole world for supporting us," said health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. "While the South African government's drug policy was driven mainly by domestic factors, we never lost sight of the international dimension and we hope our experience has contributed in some way to the larger debate on access to affordable health care for developing countries and for the poor in wealthier nations. We do not delude ourselves that the end of the court case is the end of our struggle for access to affordable medicines. In reality, we are only at the start of a long and arduous journey."

In a joint statement, COSATU and the TAC hailed the withdrawal as "a historic victory of good over evil." The organizations said they would call for rapid steps to make anti-retroviral drugs, which prolong the life of people with AIDS, available here. They called on the government to increase the health budget to make this possible. The government has suggested that it will not move anytime soon to provide these medications in public hospitals. It says it cannot afford them, and that their safety has yet to be confirmed.

In a joint statement with the drug companies, the South African government said it would respect international agreements on "intellectual property"--a position from which it has never deviated. The drug companies, for their part, were backpedaling as fast as possible. In recent months, they had already announced, with great fanfare, that they would cut the price of some HIV/AIDS medications for African governments--at prices, however, still beyond the reach of workers and farmers.

"We're a very major corporation. We're not insensitive to public opinion. That is a factor in our decision-making," J. P. Garnier, chief executive of GlaxoSmithKlein, told the New York Times. "We don't want the public to misunderstand the issues. We have never been opposed to wider access. We have discounted our drugs. We've done everything we could."  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home