FTAA Spells Disaster in Latin America
By Emily Steele
Contributing Writer

It is our responsibility as citizens of the United States and the global community to do all that we can to make sure our government works to fight the Global AIDS crisis. The Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement (FTAA) is a step in the wrong direction, in terms of placing profit before human lives. It will limit both Latin America and the Caribbean in the production and marketing of affordable anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) and will benefit wealthy pharmaceutical companies.

The Student Global AIDS campaign works through political action campaigns to hold our government accountable for creating policies that will impact the Global AIDS fight. Chapters across the country, including Pomona College, are writing letters to US Trade Representative Robert Zoelick to implore him to use his position to fight the AIDS epidemic, rather than crippling the nations of the world in their efforts.

The AIDS Epidemic in South America is different than in sub-Saharan Africa. Many countries have the resources to provide universal health care for people living with AIDS by producing generic forms of ARVs that can cut costs by 20 percent of the price of name brand medicines. Brazil, for example, has a free universal AIDS treatment program, which has decreased AIDS-related mortality by over 50% and has stabilized rates of new infections.

Under the current system, the Doha Declaration of 1994, signed by the member nations of the World Trade Organization, allows for flexibility surrounding patent laws in the manufacturing of generic ARVs. Countries are allowed to apply for Compulsory Licenses to enable both the public and private sector to produce generic forms of these drugs. Under this agreement, even if a pharmaceutical company denies a nation the Compulsory License, that country is allowed to go ahead and produce the cheaper drug in the interest of public health. Kate Evans, a doctor working with Doctors Without Borders, makes it clear that producing generic drugs is the only sustainable way to make prices of ARV drugs affordable.

However, the current draft of the FTAA would severely impact Latin America’s ability to produce and market affordable ARV drugs for Latin America and the Caribbean. This is particularly damaging, as the Caribbean suffers from the second-highest HIV infection rates in the world. The “TRIPS-plus” provision, which President Bush has included into the most recent version of the FTAA, guarantees pharmaceutical companies a 20-year monopoly over drug sales, a nominal reward for the research and development that these companies promote. However, all statistics show that an increasingly high proportion of profits go into marketing, rather than research and development.

There are many ways in which the current draft of the FTAA will impact Latin America and the Caribbean’s ability to produce affordable AIDS medication. Evans outlined several specific aspects of the FTAA that will impact her organization’s ability to fight the AIDS epidemic in Latin America and the Caribbean. One important way that she spoke about was how the TRIPS-plus provision will limit Latin American countries to buying drugs from a select number of countries in their region.

Currently, under the process of parallel importation, Evans explained that prices for ARV drugs are adjusted to reflect the competition in the country where they are marketed. This means that, if there are a number of companies producing generic drugs in a country, the prices are lower due to increased competition. (Examples of countries with low drug prices due to competition are China and India.) This means that a country can choose where to purchase drugs, based on the lowest price in the global market. This method has been a way to get around breaking patent agreements.

Perhaps the most crippling manner in which the TRIPS-plus provision will hurt Latin America is that, even if the patent law is overridden, there is no manner by which a country can override the new five-year waiting period before they can gain access to any data gathered on new name-brand medicines. Pharmaceutical companies spend a lot of money on research and clinical trials in order to produce the data needed to prove their drug’s effectiveness.

The body of research and consequent data used to prove that a drug is safe and effective for the market is protected under data exclusivity rights upheld in the current draft of the FTAA. Previously, this data was available to generic drug companies so that they could show that their drug, which is of the same chemical composition as the approved name-brand drug, is effective. This data is used to defray the difficult and unnecessary expense of further clinical trials. Under FTAA this data is protected for five years. Effectively, if any new drug comes out on the market or a vaccine is discovered, the nations under TRIPS-plus would have to wait at least five years to manufacture it at an affordable price.

We are obligated to make sure that our government does not put the profits of pharmaceutical companies before human lives. We cannot allow the Bush administration to cripple developing nations’ ability to fight this deadly epidemic. To get more information on the FTAA or Global AIDS issues in general, or to get involved in working against this damaging agreement, join the Pomona College Chapter of the Student Global AIDS Campaign. Involvement can range from getting informed on the issues and talking with your friends, to helping with campaigns and fundraising.

You can write a letter to Zoelick, who is not an elected official and so has no capacity to deal with the kind of mass mailing that congressmen and senators do. The SGAC has been successful in meeting with him in the past through a massive letter writing campaign. The FTAA Ministerial Meeting will be held in Miami Nov. 20-21. Get letters out to Robert Zoelick before then and make your voice heard. Or join the SGAC postcard writing campaign on campus. Volunteer to sit in the dinning halls and get people to write postcards to Zoelick. Lastly, get informed. Stay current on issues surrounding the FTAA and the Global AIDS crisis. Some helpful websites: www.fightglobalaids.org www.stopftaa.org www.ustr.gov/regions/whemisphere/ftaa.shtml