Groups Accuse U.S. of Pushing Brand-Name HIV Drugs

AIDS activist groups teamed up with the international relief group Doctors Without Borders on Thursday to accuse the U.S. government of pushing expensive, brand-name HIV drugs in poor countries.

AIDS activist groups teamed up with the international relief group Doctors Without Borders on Thursday to accuse the U.S. government of pushing expensive, brand-name HIV drugs in poor countries. The groups accused the United States of supporting the for-profit pharmaceutical giants that make the drugs, instead of joining the World Health Organization and other groups in distributing much cheaper and easier-to-take generics. The U.S. government has said it is concerned that the generics, which often mix several drugs in one pill, may not be safe or completely effective in the long term. At issue are the drug cocktails that allow patients infected with the AIDS virus to lead healthy lives, as long as they can juggle the complicated drug regimens, which often have serious side-effects. These cocktails, called highly active antiretroviral therapy or HAART, are very expensive. But the World Health Organization and many groups have negotiated cheaper prices from some companies that make them. They have also bought and are distributing cheap copycat versions made by two Indian companies — Cipla Ltd., and Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. WHO, U.S. officials, scientists and experts are expected to discuss the issue at a meeting in Botswana next week. “The generic drugs opposed by the United States allow people with HIV/AIDS to take only two pills a day, and they are much cheaper than the equivalent brand-name drugs,” AIDS activist group Human Rights Watch said in a statement. The cheapest cocktail costs $140 per year per patient as opposed to the brand-name equivalent which costs $600 a year, the group said. The groups say generics are safe and work well. “WHO has made enormous headway in verifying the quality of generic AIDS drugs that are the only hope for millions of low-income people with AIDS,” said Joanne Csete, director of the HIV/AIDS Program at Human Rights Watch. GENERICS ALREADY WIDELY USED “But to protect brand-name pharmaceutical interests, the United States may dash that hope.” Doctors Without Borders, or as it is more commonly known, Medecins Sans Frontieres, said it was widely distributing the disputed generics. “MSF is currently providing antiretroviral therapy to more than 11,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in over 20 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, and expects the total number of patients on (HAART) to reach 25,000 in 25 countries by the end of 2004,” the group wrote in a letter to U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Randall Tobias and Health and Human Servoices Secretary Tommy Thompson. But Tobias, a former chairman of Eli Lilly and Co., has said he is concerned about the drugs’ safety. “I think it is very, very important that we move rapidly but with certainty that we’re not endangering people’s lives,” Tobias told a hearing before a House Appropriations subcommittee last week. Sharonann Lynch, Director of international policy for Health GAP, another AIDS activist group, disputed Tobias’ intentions. “This is industry protection and politics masquerading as science,” she said in a statement. The dispute echoes a fight that ended in 2000 when former president Bill Clinton’s administration backed down from a controversial plan to block generic HIV drugs. Drug companies had argued that generics violated patent protections and compromised future research.(Source: Reuters Health, March 2004)