What is Health GAP (Global Access Project)?

We are an organization of U.S.-based AIDS and human rights activists, people living with HIV/AIDS, public health experts, fair trade advocates and concerned individuals who campaign against policies of neglect and avarice that deny treatment to millions and fuel the spread of HIV. We are dedicated to eliminating barriers to global access to affordable life-sustaining medicines for people living with HIV/AIDS as key to a comprehensive strategy to confront and ultimately stop the AIDS pandemic. We believe that the human right to life and to health must prevail over the pharmaceutical industry's excessive profits and expanding patent rights.

What does Health GAP do?

We campaign for drug access and the resources necessary to sustain access for people with HIV/AIDS across the globe. We work with allies in the global South and in the G-7 countries to formulate policies that promote access, mobilize grassroots support for those policies, and confront governmental policy makers, the pharmaceutical industry and international agencies when their policies or practices block access.

Sustained access cannot result from industry-controlled charity programs. Multiple strategies are needed to lower drug prices to affordable levels. These strategies include generic production, voluntary and compulsory licensing and parallel importing. A system of global bulk procurement at lowest world prices is crucial if people living with HIV in the poorest countries are to have access to treatment. We reject efforts by industry or governments to deny or restrict the right of countries to exercise these and other strategies to protect the health of their people.

Current Health GAP campaigns include:

o· Advocating for full funding of the Global AIDS and Health Fund: This fund, announced by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, holds the promise of developing and implementing a comprehensive program of treatment, and care for HIV/AIDS. Key to the success of this fund is good governance, and the establishment of national, regional, and global health commodities bulk procurement and delivery systems.

o· Reforming US trade policy: Health GAP led a successful campaign to change U.S. trade policies that punished countries that attempted to produce or import affordable generic AIDS drugs. However, the US government continues to prioritize pharmaceutical profits and oppose generic competition through its influence over the World Bank, IMF, and other United Nations institutions, as well as through bilateral bullying of poor countries. We work with global allies to change policies that block access to affordable medications.

o· Pressuring drug companies: The pharmaceutical industry maintains its extraordinary profits in rich countries, and sabotages poor countries' efforts to produce or import affordable generic drugs--although drug companies generate little-to-no profit in poor countries. We expose and actively oppose these efforts and will build support for poor countries' right and responsibility to care for their people.

o· Fighting for debt cancellation: Foreign debt handicaps hinders the ability of the most affected countries to confront the AIDS epidemic. We work with global allies to win full cancellation of debt owed the IMF and World Bank by poor countries, using the resources of those financial institutions. We oppose structural adjustment programs and similar requirements that weaken public health systems, obstruct treatment access, and accelerate the spread of HIV.