AIDS activists respond to DeBeers', Anglo's commitment to treat HIV-positive miners

Call on Coca-Cola, others corporations to treat workers with HIV

OCTOBER 17, 2002: GLOBAL DAY OF PROTEST AGAINST CORPATIONS DENYING AIDS DRUGS

"After years of false starts from Anglo and De Beers while miners died needlessly, this commitment to paying for the cost of life-extending AIDS treatment is welcome and long overdue," said Eustacia Smith of ACT UP New York and Health GAP. "These two massive corporations are setting out a code of practice that is a wake-up call to any multi-national corporation doing business in the Third World: no workplace AIDS plan is comprehensive or credible without provisions for equitable access to HIV treatment for all workers."

U.S. activist groups are joining with grassroots organizations from impoverished countries around the world for a day of massive simultaneous protests staged against companies who are continuing to deny HIV positive workers free medicines. Top on the list of targets is Coca-Cola, the largest foreign private sector employer in Africa, who is excluding Coke bottlers and distributors in Africa from AIDS treatment access programs. Anti-Coke AIDS activists protested the company at their annual shareholders meeting at Madison Square Garden, as well as a recent gala dinner hosted by the Global Business Coalition on AIDS.

The organizations sponsoring the Global Day of Action against Coca-Cola include Treatment Action Campaign (South Africa), Global AIDS Alliance, European AIDS Treatment Group, Association marocaine de Lutte Contre le Sida (Association Fighting AIDS), Morocco, Health GAP, ACT UP New York, ACT UP Philadelphia, Act Up-Paris, and Thai Network of People Living with HIV (TNP+).

Activists state that De Beers' requirement that workers‹most of whom are desperately poor and work in intolerable conditions‹pay 10 per cent of medicine costs will be a point of conflict, as well as Anglo's refusal to pay for treatment for mineworkers' dependents.

"Even if De Beers procures generics at the lowest possible price, impoverished miners will be discouraged by a large co-payment," said Asia Russell of ACT UP Philadelphia and Health GAP. "People with AIDS who mine for a living must dictate what, if any, contribution from workers is acceptable."

"Other mining companies must now step up to the plate: Gold Fields, Harmony, BHP Billiton, the whole club‹Anglo and De Beers is showing treatment is possible. The only variable is political commitment on the part of the companies," said Brook Baker of Health GAP. "Miners in Africa as a group have 25-30% HIV prevalence rates. Up to now, mining corporations have simply replaced workers while they sicken and die, rather than paying for treatment to keep them healthy."

Activists called upon Anglo-American and De Beers to quickly negotiate in partnership with provincial and national governments a provision for treatment for the family members and dependents. "Today marks an improvement in the fight for the right to treatment for workers and their families," said Sharonann Lynch. "People living with AIDS and their advocates will continue to press government and corporations until affordable access to AIDS treatment is available and the unnecessary suffering of people dying needlessly from lack of access is abated."

For more information, including background regarding actions targeting Coca-Cola, contact Health GAP at (212) 674-9598.

HEALTH GAP DEMANDS COCA-COLA AND OTHER MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS:

o Provide all workers and their dependents with comprehensive healthcare - including life-sustaining antiretroviral treatments for those living with HIV/AIDS.

o Offer confidential HIV testing and counseling to all workers, in the context of a clear anti-discrimination policy.

o Distribute free condoms in the workplace, and provide safer-sex and sexual health education classes.

o Develop further HIV/AIDS prevention and education policies in collaboration with affected employees, their labor representatives, and community-based health initiatives.

(For complete demands regarding HIV/AIDS workplace programs, go to www.healthgap.org)

#30