Multinational pharmaceuticals kill South Africans for profit

By MC17

On March 5 multinational pharmaceutical companies went to 
court against the government of South Africa, challenging a 
South African law which allows easier access to AIDS drugs. 
The 42 pharmaceutical companies, which include 
GlaxoSmithKlien and Merk along with other u.s.-based 
corporations, argue that the South African drug law will 
destroy patent protections by allowing production and import 
of cheaper versions of drugs still under patent. 

This case illustrates very clearly how capitalism serves the profit 
interests of the wealthy at the expense of the poor. A 
patent allows an inventor exclusive rights to manufacture 
and sale a drug for a set period of time,. In the case of 
pharmaceutical drugs this is now 20 years. The company 
holding a patent can set the prices without any competition 
and can even decide not to produce needed life-saving drugs, 
if it decides there is not enough profit to be made. 

The capitalist country which probably has the most at stake, the 
united snakes, threatened South Africa with trade sanctions 
over this drug patent conflict. But after international 
outcry, in late 1999 the Clinton administration backed off 
of this threat.(1) At the same time the u.s. government has 
filed a complaint with the WTO in an effort to shut down 
Brazil's generic drug manufacturing program which makes AIDS 
treatment widely available to its population.(2) It is no 
surprise the u.s. government backs up the pharmaceutical 
companies which give millions of dollars in campaign 
donations each year. The success of this court case would 
lead to many unnecessary deaths. In the three years since 
the big pharmaceutical companies filed this lawsuit 400,000 
South Africans have died of AIDS. Only 0.2 percent of the 
4.3 million HIV-infected South African's can afford the 
advanced drug treatments now available. These drugs have cut 
the AIDS death rate in the u.s. and Europe by more than two-
thirds.(2)

One in five adults in South Africa is infected 
with HIV so the implications of this court case reach the 
vast majority of the population.(3) While pharmaceutical 
companies are raking in the profits, around the world 30,000 
people die each day from treatable and preventable 
infectious diseases.(4) 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).(5) 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. 

Notes: 1. SF Chronicle, March 5, 2001, p.A11. 2. San 
Francisco Bay Guardian, Feb 28, 2001. 3. NYT, feb25, 2001. 
4. Washington post, feb 25, 2001, pB06 5. Treatment Action 
Campaign website: www.tac.org.za