For Immediate Release: 10 January 2003

Contact:
Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold, Presiding Bishop, The Episcopal Church, USA, 202 547 7300
Asia Russell, Health GAP (Global Access Project), 267-475-2645 Dr. Jim Kim, Partners in Health, 617-432-5256
Zackie Achmat, Chairperson, Treatment Action Counsel & Co-Founder, Pan-African HIV/AIDS Treatment Access Movement (PATAM) 27-83-467-1152
Dr. Paul Zeitz, Global AIDS Alliance, 202-549-3664

AGOA Summit: Time Running Out for Bush AIDS Initiative

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Bush Administration is sending a high-level delegation to the African Growth and Opportunity Act Summit next week to trumpet growth in trade with Africa. In a call with reporters today, activists say the U.S. commitment to Africa is failing because the U.S. has radically underfunded the fight against global AIDS, and U.S. trade negotiators scuttled an agreement at the WTO to improve poor countries' ability to buy generic medication.

"Africa needs more textile jobs, but first it needs children born healthy, parents who live long enough to raise them, and teachers who live long enough to teach them. While the U.S. has made some modest progress on increasing trade with Africa, it has not kept commitments to allow African governments to import essential, generic medicines to keep their citizens alive and healthy. The single most compelling moral imperative for the U.S. is to help fund the global fight against HIV/AIDS. Nothing is more important to Africa. Our Administration should not claim credit for an inadequate response to African disease and poverty when we have yet to pay our share of the cost of the global battle against this pandemic," said the Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold, presiding bishop, the Episcopal Church, USA.

"The U.S. delegation is going to Mauritius to brag about America's trade policy for Africa and its effect on African livelihoods. But free trade doesn't work for the dead. A modest expansion of trade will be of little comfort to millions of Africans who will die of treatable illnesses because the U.S. has underfunded the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and zero-funded President Bush's own Mother to Child AIDS Transmission initiative. And at the same time, U.S. trade negotiators acted on behalf of PHARMA, not Africa, and scuttled an agreement to help prevent future epidemics by making generic medication more widely available in poor countries," said Asia Russell, director of international policy of Health GAP (Global Access Project, an AIDS and health care activist group.

"As a direct service provider, I believe it is our fundamental responsibility to tackle these diseases, and establish treatment, prevention and care programs, the likes of which we've never seen before in poor countries. HIV/AIDS, TB, and Malaria are the worse social disasters that market based societies have ever faced," said Dr. Jim Kim, executive director, Partners in Health, and Co-Director of the Program in Infectious Disease and Social Change in the Department of Medicine at Harvard.

"HIV/AIDS is a greater threat to security across the globe than any single other issue we're facing today. We urge the Bush Administration to take AIDS, TB and Malaria seriously, and to put life before greed," said Zackie Achmat, Chairperson, Treatment Action Counsel & Co-Founder, Pan-African HIV/AIDS Treatment Access Movement (PATAM). "As we look toward AGOA next week, we also urge unilateral lifting of the unjust subsidies to farmers - particularly in the United States - which keep all of our countries from trading on a fair and equitable basis."

"The world is anxiously waiting to see if President Bush presents a budget proposal that takes into account the enormous scale of the AIDS crisis and the need for US leadership," stated Dr. Paul Zeitz, Executive Director of the Global AIDS Alliance. "Only by presenting a comprehensive plan to fight AIDS in Africa, with adequate funding, can the Bush Administration show it takes seriously the development crisis affecting the continent. How can trade succeed when the economic viability of Africa is threatened? Frankly, we are getting tired of the empty rhetoric and false claims of leadership."

www.healthgap.org/camp/trade.html