Waive the patent

by Editor · March 25, 2001

The South African government is to be commended for taking on the pharmaceutical giants over the provision of cheap medicines for destitute people with HIV/Aids.

In doing so, the government has at last heeded the calls made by activists in the field of Aids care, including the Catholic Church.

At issue is not, as the pharmaceutical companies would have it, patent rights. At issue is the sanctity of life. Catholics will know whose right outweighs the other.

The Southern African bishops have urged the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers� Association (PMA) not to put profit above human life, as we reported last week. Blocking the distribution of cheap or free anti-retroviral treatment by asserting patent rights is indeed, as the bishops say, indefensible.

Of course, the concerns of the PMA, a coalition of 29 leading pharmaceutical companies, are not without legitimacy. According to industry figures, it costs millions to develop and market a drug. These are businesses and operate according to the principles of the free market. Patents ensure that their investments are not rendered worthless by cheaper copies.

However, this argument does not hold water in the context of Aids in Africa. Here, simply put, the pharmaceutical companies have no market. Of the many millions of HIV/Aids infected people in Africa, few can afford even to feed themselves and their families, never mind acquiring exorbitantly priced drugs. In absence of a market in which to profit, these corporations logically face no economic loss.

In that light, it is difficult to understand, beyond conspiracy theorists, why they do not accede to a limited waiver of patent rights, possibly by applying a stringently regulated system which would guard against corruption in the distribution of Aids medicines.

However, the morally just battle against the pharmaceutical industry must not obscure the causes of Aids, and the failure of many African governments to address timeously what now amounts to a crisis on par with the bubonic plague of Europe in the middle-ages.

Along with the medical treatment and care for those who already have HIV/Aids (and their families) must come a way to address the socio-ecomonic factors that contribute to the spread of the disease.