Press Statement
www.globaltreatmentaccess.org | www.healthgap.org

1. It is approximately 8 months after the president announced his "Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief" and in that time over 1.5 million preventable deaths have occurred. In that light, how soon are you going to provide clinical and programmatic details for the plan?

2. In order to implement the EPAR as soon as possible, how quickly will you appoint an adequate number of senior public health experts with experience providing HIV care, treatment, and prevention in African and the Caribbean to leadership positions in the program?

3. Given that the efforts of EPAR, in order to succeed, must be complemented by the efforts of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM), how will you work to ensure the success of the GFATM not only functionally and operationally but also fiscally?

4. Given that the GFATM is under a severe fiscal crisis, acknowledging that it will not have the funds to approve all viable grant applications in its third round in October 2003, will you publicly support funding levels from the US government that will ensure its sustainability--specifically, the U.S. fair share of $1 billion in 2004, increasing to at least $2 billion in 2005?

5. As a principle of the EPAR, will you publicly commit to procurement of low-cost, standard quality generics in countries where such use is legal--that is where countries have no competing patents on file or where a country has issued a compulsory license for either local production or export/import? As an additional principle of the EPAR, will you publicly commit to the sourcing of generics through multiple suppliers?

6. Will you publicly commit to utilizing cost-effective drug procurement mechanisms like that being set up by WHO, enabling the U.S. to buy medicines more cheaply, benefiting U.S. taxpayers, but also enlarging economies of scale and therefore benefiting all recipient countries?

7. Will you publicly commit to enforcing a preference for rational, fixed-dose combination medicines that ease patient compliance and thus reduce the incidence of drug resistance?

8. Will you publicly commit to opposing U.S. trade policies that will negatively impact access to medicines and in particular trade policies that undermine existing flexibilities in the TRIPS Agreement, in the Doha Declaration, and in the Paragraph 6 Agreement?

9. Will you publicly commit to the principle that TRIPS, Doha, and Paragraph 6 now represent the ceiling for intellectual property rights in regional and bilateral trade negotiations, which whether or not include any of the 14 countries outlined by the EPAR will ultimately affect access directly or indirectly in those countries?

10. Will you publicly commit to backing science-based approaches especially to prevention and treatment options, through the utilization of condoms, and working directly with sex workers, IV drug users, and men who have sex with men despite any implicit or explicit contradiction to this administration's policies?

11. Will you commit to investing in public health infrastructure and medical personnel in order to build up the base-line health care system rather than drop-in specialized, "stove-pipe" programs that fail to reliably address the underlying crisis in health care capacity that has been intensified by past, US-sponsored structural adjustment programs?

12. Will you publicly commit to renouncing so-called "user fees" and other cost-recovery mechanisms that will undoubtedly undermine program utilization?

13. As a principle of the EPAR, will you publicly commit to local control and ownership of programs and the active participation and decision-making of people living with the diseases?

14. As a principle of the EPAR, will you publicly commit to the principle of "universal access" and in particular strong plans to address the special vulnerability of women and girls and the special needs of rural and migrant populations?

15. Will you publicly commit to the principle that treatment of children and orphan mitigation and care is a key component of the US response?