Stockholders share not Healthcare: U.S. taken to task over AIDS drug policy

From: Zee (zwalanga_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 07/14/04 

Date: 13 Jul 2004 22:25:45 -0700

Amazing isn't it, people dying from illnesses that could be beaten if
STOCKHOLDERS SHARE would just take a back seat to HEALTHCARE. In the
meantime, BILLIONS are spent developing lifestyle drugs, like statins
and viagra.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040712/AIDS12/TPHealth/

"As a result, U.S.-funded AIDS programs in poor
countries are able to buy only those drugs
approved by the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration."

U.S. taken to task over AIDS drug policy

Insistence on buying only FDA-approved medicine
draws fire at annual meeting

By STEPHANIE NOLEN
Monday, July 12, 2004 - Page A3

BANGKOK -- The 15th International AIDS Conference
opened with a mood of tension in the Thai capital
yesterday, with the United States standing
increasingly isolated in its insistence on the
use of brand-name drugs for the treatment of
people with AIDS.

Activists and leaders of the United Nations AIDS
treatment efforts were critical of the U.S.
program, saying it is spending two to three times
more than necessary to supply patients in Asia
and Africa with brand-name anti-retroviral drugs
from large drug companies.

Randall Tobias, the U.S. government's global AIDS
co-ordinator, said Washington's program is open
to the use of generic drugs. "Our policy is to
buy the least expensive drugs we can find
anywhere in the world -- without regard to
whether they are brand-name or generic," as long
as those drugs are safe, he told reporters.

But Mr. Tobias, a former head of the
pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly and Co., also
insisted that there should be no "double
standard" between the drugs used in poor
countries and the West. As a result, U.S.-funded
AIDS programs in poor countries are able to buy
only those drugs approved by the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration.

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