Contact: David Hoos, 917-447-7024

On Tuesday, November 30, the eve of World AIDS Day, activists from ACT UP/ NY and the Health GAP Coalition will stage a protest outside the World Trade Center (home of the U.S. Commerce Department), calling on the World Trade Organization to support access to life-saving medications for poor nations. The demonstration will be one component of a larger action by a coalition of groups opposing WTO policies on health, environmental and labor issues. The New York protest will coincide with a similar one by AIDS activists at the White House, at which arrests are expected. At the same time, tens of thousands of activists will demonstrate at the WTO trade meeting in Seattle, demanding that the WTO put human lives before profits on a range of issues.

For almost a year, activists have battled to change U.S. trade policies which have punished poor countries for attempting to provide essential, life-saving medicines to their citizens who are dying of AIDS and other diseases. Tomorrow's protest is the latest in a series of actions that have disrupted presidential candidate Al Gore's campaign stops, closed Washington D.C. streets to traffic and shut down U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky's office building.

"The fact that our government is using our tax dollars to advocate on behalf of wealthy drug companies that want to restrict access to essential medications worldwide is a moral outrage," said Eric Sawyer of ACT UP/New York. "The U.S. government should never interfere with, and in fact should support, the attempts of other governments to provide life-saving medicines to people with AIDS."

Many poor countries facing a skyrocketing AIDS epidemic are unable to afford HIV treatments at prices of over $1,000 a month. Limited drug donation programs do little in nations where as many as one in four people are HIV positive. Nations that attempt to implement programs to produce or import their own cheaper AIDS drugs have been economically punished by the United States on behalf of pharmaceutical companies. "These bullying tactics are far too much for developing countriesı fragile economies to take‹and people in those countries with AIDS are paying the price with their lives," said Dr. David Hoos of the Health GAP Coalition.

Pharmaceutical companies have been working to prevent developing countries from producing or importing cheap, generic versions of patented drugs for AIDS and a range of treatable diseases--even though doing so is perfectly legal under international trade agreements. These multinational corporations have used their lobbying clout to get the US government to threaten trade sanctions against South Africa, Thailand, Egypt and Venezuela, to name just a few nations, where neither people nor governments can afford the inflated prices of brand-name drugs. "Instead of threatening these nations, we need to empower them to find their own solutions. Producing or importing generic drugs can be a solution for many," Hoos said.

In 1997, South Africa passed a law permitting the generic production of medications to fight AIDS and other serious illnesses. The U.S. responded by placing South Africa on the 301 trade watch list unless the law was repealed, and Vice President Al Gore threatened further sanctions in meetings of the Bi-National Commission, which he co-chairs. After months of pressure from activists in the U.S. and South Africa, the Clinton Administration reversed their position on South Africa's law.

"We are hopeful that the U.S. has done the right thing for South Africa," said ACT UPıs Mark Milano. "But saving lives in Thailand, Brazil and India is just as vital as saving lives in South Africa. We must support similar efforts in all countries hard-hit by HIV."

The Health Global Access Project Coalition is a worldwide network of AIDS, public health and consumer advocacy groups campaigning for affordable medications worldwide. On World AIDS Day (December 1), public events highlighting demands for access to medication are taking place in South Africa, Thailand, Brazil, as well as the ones in New York, Washington and Seattle.

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