US withdraws writ against AIDS drug production in Brazil

Abstract

A major UK charity warns that the US back down from World Trade Organisation (WTO) sanctions against Brazil for manufacturing cheap HIV/AIDS drugs, may not signal the opening up of markets for cheap medicines to the developing world. According to an Oxfam spokesperson, “We believe the US withdrew the case because patents were too hot an issue after the events in South Africa in April, when the drug companies allowed parallel HIV/AIDS drugs to be manufactured under intense public pressure.” Under public pressure, the US government recently dropped a complaint it had filed with the WTO to try to block generic production of HIV/AIDS drugs in Brazil, saying their intellectual property laws violated international property rules. The Brazilian government has provisions in their law for the production of generic medicines in an emergency situation. However, the two governments settled the issue over provisions in Brazil’s patent laws through a bilateral consultative mechanism, after the US withdrew its writ. “But all the US withdrawal has done is to take the proceedings away from the World Trade Organisation,” said the Oxfam spokesperson. “We believe the US government is now free to drive hard economic and political bargains in return for health. Charities understand that the US will take advantage of this out of court settlement being in private. It is no longer a public court settlement but just between two governments, a rich and a poor,” he said. In a letter dated June 19, 2001, the Brazilian government wrote to the US trade representative, proposing “a consultative mechanism” . . . “if the US withdrew the WTO panel”. The US drug industry trade group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America supported the US’s WTO case against Brazil and is cited by charities as the chief protagonist for advising WTO sanctions. Oxfam believes the situation in Brazil is parallel to that in South Africa, whose 1997 Medicines Act was criticised by the USA and the European Commission and later challenged in the courts by international drug companies. The WTO Agreement on TradeRelated Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights was introduced in 1994. It obliges member states to grant at least 20-year patent protection in all fields of technology, including medicine. In Brazil’s law, Article 68 allows for parallel imports of drugs in emergency situations. It states that if a patent holder does not manufacture the patented product in country, the government may allow the import of the patented product from the cheapest source, whatever the wishes of the patent holder. Georgina Kenyon