Partial victory for international proletariat in struggle for AIDS drugs for Africa The international proletariat celebrates the partial reform victory of obtaining cheaper first-rate AIDS drugs for Africa. After a week of demonstrations in Africa, on March 14, 2001, monopoly capitalist corporation Bristol-Myers Squibb announced it would cease trying to stop generic companies from selling cheaper versions of their anti-H.I.V. drugs in Africa. The company said it would also start selling its Videx drug at $1 instead of $18 a day. It claims the new price is below cost, but Indian companies said they would make even cheaper versions of the Videx two-drug combination. In the previous week, Merck had announced steep cuts in the prices of its anti-H.I.V. drugs. The executive vice-president of Bristol-Myers Squibb then made an historic admission: "It's about poverty and a devastating disease. We seek no profits on AIDS drugs in Africa, and we will not let our patents be an obstacle."(1) Bristol-Myers Squibb still plans to go ahead with its lawsuits against generic companies, but says it is only because the lawsuits apply to all drug patents. Obviously the international proletariat must keep up its vigilance to hold Bristol-Myers Squibb to its promises. GlaxoSmithKline was not willing to abandon any patents, but it did step up pressures on governments and international agencies to pay for its drugs. Just because poor people cannot afford Glaxo's drugs does not mean someone else can't pay for them. The crack in the monopoly capital front in pharmaceuticals also has to do with the fact that a vaccine may come out soon and the fact that no one company can say who will invent the next superior drug that leaves their own obsolete. These companies have a self- interest in selling these drugs quickly before they become useless. They also have the power to make the U.S. Government and other governments listen. In terms of the U.$. Government, the struggle has reached great heights of intensity. Contrary to left-leaning reformists, Democrats and liberals, George W. Bush also has to respond to class struggle when imperialism gets too much negative exposure. In March, Bush administration officials admitted to aiming at tripling or quadrupling support for AIDS drugs for Africa established only last year under Bill Clinton, and some are now pushing for increasing AIDS support to Africa by a factor of 10, including support for administration and community health.(2) It is difficult to read mainstream media to know who should get credit for the struggle to win cheaper AIDS drugs for Africa. No doubt we will leave out the names of those who deserve credit aside from the people demonstrating in Africa itself. MIM can see that ACT-UP, the AIDS activist group deserves credit for struggling hard, organizing press releases, web pages and demonstrations on the issue.(3) Student activists at Yale, which holds the patent on a drug manufactured by Bristol-Myers Squibb, have pressured the University to release its agreement with the pharmaceutical giant and demanded the drug be made affordable to poor countries.(8) Africans themselves protested outside U.S. embassies in Johannesburg and Cape Town, not just this year, but last year as well.(4) The World Health Organization (WHO) would be a source of information, but it is clear that it is no activist presence. It's web page did not target the cheap drugs or patents/generics issue,(6) the way the ACT-UP DC chapter did by putting it right on the home page. Another good page was the New York ACT UP page.(7) No doubt MIM has its disagreements with leaders and activists in ACT-UP chapters around the world; nonetheless, this struggle has unfolded in internationalist fashion, targeting multinational corporations, the U.S. Government, the European Union, the World Bank and other transnational organizations of imperialism. By way of comparison social-fascists are seeking to tell the proletariat that it should focus on restrictions on trade and immigration. Such a strategy never could have chased the monopoly pharmaceutical companies all over the world the way the AIDS struggle did. Nor is this an issue of reform versus revolution. MIM will work with reformists with internationalist vision as our friends in the imperialist countries. We call them the left-wing of social-democracy. We see they have the interests of the international proletariat in their sights, unlike the usual activists supporting the labor aristocracy's interests. The way the struggle unfolded was very dialectical. The multinational corporations originally fought tooth-and-nail, but over years, have been forced to give ground again and again. Oppression and exploitation have given rise to resistance. Even at the beginning of March, pharmaceutical companies went on the offensive against generic drugs.(YYY) While drug companies rake in the profits, 30,000 people die worldwide each day from treatable and preventable infectious diseases.(11) In the year 2000, drug companies sold more than $315 billion, more than the gross domestic product of all 12 countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC).(12) Allowing people to die because a profit can not be made from saving them is no better than shooting people to death. This gross negligence passes for the capitalist spirit in Amerikan culture. It should be clear to everyone who wants a world where people have access to necessary medical treatment that capitalism does not work. The struggle to obtain cheaper drugs for AIDS in Africa is a class struggle, one increasingly won by the international proletariat. Its significance is much greater than all the imperialist country union, Trotskyist and other alleged "worker" struggles combined in the imperialist countries. The struggle for AIDS drugs for all should continue and link up to the struggle for other humyn needs held back by private property. Notes: 1. New York Times 15 Mar 2001. 2. Boston Globe 16 Mar 2001 3. http://www.actupdc.org/africa/ This is a beautiful web page, but it stopped in 2000. 4. http://www.actupdc.org/africa/saprotest.html 5. To see a monopoly pharmaceutical point of view, go to: http://www.securethefuture.com/howhel/data/howhel.htm 6. http://www.who.int/health-topics/hiv.htm 7. http://www.actupny.org/reports/durban-access.html 8. The Guardian (UK), 13 Mar 2001 9. MIM Notes 231, 1 Apr 2001 10. Washington post, 25 Feb 2001 12. Treatment Action Campaign website: www.tac.org.za