Press Statement
ACT UP PHILADELPHIA
ACT UP NEW YORK
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Asia Russell or Kate Krauss: (215) 731-1844 page (215) 838-2355
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ACT UP JOINS CALL FOR PFIZER TO SLASH PRICE OF LIFE-SAVING MEDICINE IN SOUTH AFRICA
Activists demand Clinton/Gore Administration implement new US policy on global medication crisis by supporting poor countries¹ efforts to increase drug access
(March 13, 2000: Johannesburg) Today in Johannesburg a delegation of AIDS activists, led by the community-based coalition Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), demanded Pfizer reduce the price of fluconazole (Diflucan) or allow the sale of less expensive, generic fluconazole in South Africa. In South Africa Pfizer holds exclusive marketing rights and a 200 mg pill costs US$8.92‹more than the average daily wage. In Thailand, where there is no patent on the drug, fluconazole is 15 times cheaper: the same pill costs US$0.60.
Fluconazole is effective in treatment of Cryptococcal meningitis, the most common systemic fungal infection in people with AIDS. Life expectancy without treatment is typically less than one month. Pfizer¹s profit in 1999 alone from worldwide sales of fluconazole was US$1.2 billion.
ACT UP Philadelphia and ACT UP New York joined the South African activists¹ call for a life-saving price reduction. "Pfizer¹s greed has long guaranteed millions of preventable deaths around the globe‹in South Africa, in Guatemala, in Kenya, and every other poor country where Pfizer maintains exclusive marketing rights for fluconazole," said Joyce Hamilton, ACT UP Philadelphia member. "People with AIDS must not be sacrificed for the sake of Pfizer¹s gross profits."
US AIDS activists also challenged the Clinton/Gore Administration to implement its much-touted shift in US trade policy on intellectual property and medication access with a supportive, public response to the South Africa coalition¹s campaign. "Candidate Gore was happy to bask in the spotlight as chair of the UN Security Council meeting on AIDS in Africa," said John Bell of ACT UP Philadelphia, "but he and the rest of the Administration continues to sit on its hands while people with AIDS die: they must endorse this call for accessible treatment, and they must plainly state the legitimacy of compulsory licensing if Pfizer refuses to drop its price."
Following a series of protests, including the occupation of the office of the US Trade Representative and massive demonstrations in Washington, D.C., Clinton announced a new US policy of "flexibility" in response to trading partners¹ efforts to improve access to vital AIDS medications through mechanisms such as parallel importing and compulsory licensing, both legal according to WTO regulations. "Today's call for an end to Pfizer's deadly price gouging in South Africa is an opportunity for Clinton and Gore to prove that they have truly changed their stripes," said Asia Russell, of ACT UP Philadelphia. "Will the Administration call on Pfizer to do the right thing, or march the usual trade thugs in to threaten sanctions on Pfizer¹s behalf?"
For the past year, ACT UP has helped expose a pattern of complicity between the Clinton Administration and big-donor pharmaceutical companies:
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