An open letter regarding Brazil and the export of generic antiretrovirals
Dr. Paulo Roberto Teixeira
Director, National Program on Sexually Transmitted Diseases and AIDS
Ministry of Health
S“o Paulo, Brazil
An open letter regarding Brazil and the export of generic antiretrovirals
6 May 2002
Dear Paulo Teixeira,
Health GAP has publicly supported the actions and policies of the Brazilian Ministry of Health on many occasions, as part of our activist efforts to win access to affordable HIV treatment in developing countries.
To name only one example, when the United States Trade Representative (USTR) pursued dispute settlement proceedings at the WTO against Brazil in response to your country¼s domestic pharmaceutical patent policies, Health GAP fought the actions of the United States government, and helped win the USTR¼s abandonment of that dispute settlement in 2001.
Currently Health GAP is working to eliminate TRIPS-plus provisions the USTR is supporting in the draft text of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). These provisions would undermine the health of Brazil¼s generic drug access programs, and would threaten HIV medicines access in the region.
As you know, Brazil¼s groundbreaking treatment access policies are the exception and not the ruleãin Central America, South America and around the world. Governments in Central and South America are not providing treatment for dying people with HIV disease, and the prices offered by drug companies remain too highãdespite limited, conditional price reductions in some sectors in some countries. HIV is still a death sentence for most poor people living with HIV in Central and South America. The Brazilian Ministry of Health can help transform this crisis. People with HIV outside your borders who could otherwise afford the prices charged by Brazil are right now dying without access to drugs.
Health GAP calls on the Brazilian Ministry of Health to revise immediately its policies and begin permitting the purchase of Brazil¼s antiretrovrials by Central and South American countries. We support the efforts of people living with HIV/AIDS and their allies in their public protest 27 May to increase attention to Brazil¼s decision not to sell medicines to people with HIV outside its borders.
Brazil must use its formidable leadershipãin fora such as the Grupo de Cooperation Technico Horizontal (GCTH)ãto influence and pressure other governments in the region to respond to the crisis in lack of access to affordable AIDS treatment. Brazil is internationally lauded for its HIV treatment access program, which is unlike any in the world. The policies and decisions of your government could improve treatment access in the region: your leadership would save lives in the short term, while providing momentum for systemic policy change.
Without a doubt, once Brazil decides to change its policies, bilateral pressure from the U.S. and any other developed country unwise enough to oppose such an important humanitarian decision will be promptly eliminated through the effective campaigning of the international AIDS treatment access movement.
Given the urgency of the crisis, I request a response to this matter as soon as possible.
Best Regards,
Asia Russell
on behalf of Health GAP
cc: Olaf Valverde, Coordinator, Access to Essential Medicines Campaign,
MÈdecins Sans FrontiËres Central America
JosÈ Araujo, Grupo de Incentivo ý Vida
Edgar Carrasco, AcciÛn Ciudadana contra el SIDA
Richard Stern, Agua Buena Human Rights Association
Martin Jesus Garcia, UNAIDS