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A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
November 8, 2001
Steve
Perry
American
Roulette
November 7, 2001
Bahour/Dahan
Placebo Peace
Plan
Tom Turnipseed
Bush
Gives Billions
to His Oil Buddies
Cockburn/St. Clair
Greens, Airports
and
National ID Cards
Dr. Susan
Block
Ayatollah
Asscroft
Brian J. Foley
Bombing Campaign
Not "Self-Defense" Under International Law
November 6, 2001
Mark Scaramella
Where's
That Red Cross Money Going
C.G. Estabrook
Our Torturers
Sheperd
Bliss
Scott
Nearing on War
Rep. Ron Paul
Underwriting
the Taliban
Tariq
Ali
The
General Who
Came to Dinner
Evan Ravitz
Stop the War
Through
Direct Democracy
Steve
Perry
Hunger
in Afghanistan
November 5, 2001
Patrick Cockburn
Living
in the Minefields
David Price
Terror
and Indigenous People
November 3, 2001
Declan McCullagh
Nancy Oden Interview
Daniel
Wolff
The
Memphis Blues Again
Mark Weisbrot
War on Civilians
Dave Marsh
How
the RIAA (and the FBI) Cheat Musicians
Robert Jensen
Speaking
Out Against
War on Campus
November 2, 2001
CounterPunch
Wire
Green
Party Leader Detained at Maine Airport; Prevented from Boarding
Any Plane
Alexander Cockburn
FBI Eyes
Torture
November 1, 2001
Dean Baker
Dying
for Patents
Sami Amarah
US Attempts
to Recruit
Russian Vets of Afghan War
Molly Secours
Where
Are the Voices of Reason? Let the Women
Be Heard
William Blum
Unleashing the
CIA
Resources:
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Five
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Photos by Allan Sekula
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8-Page Special Issue
War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
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CounterPunch
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How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
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by Cockburn
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November
8, 2001
The Great Cipro Rip-Off
and the Public Health
By Russell Mokhiber and
Robert Weissman
Confronted with the prospect of bioterrorism on
a massive scale, the Bush administration and the pharmaceutical
industry have colluded to protect patent monopolies rather than
the public health.
When the anthrax scare first hit, Cipro
was understood to be the drug of choice for treatment. Secretary
of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson said he wanted a
stockpile adequate to treat 10 million exposed persons. That
meant he needed 1.2 billion Cipro pills (the treatment regimen
is two pills for 60 days). Bayer, which holds the disputed patent
rights to Cipro in the United States, could not meet that demand
in a timely fashion.
For the drugs it was able to supply,
Bayer was charging the government $1.89 per pill. The drugstore
price was more than $4.50. Indian companies sell a generic version
of the same drug for less than 20 cents.
The U.S. government has authority, under
existing law, to license generic companies to make on-patent
drugs for sale to the government. Those companies could have
met supply needs that Bayer was not and is not able to satisfy.
Generic competition might also have helped bring prices down,
though it is unclear exactly what the government would have to
pay Bayer if it bought generic versions of Cipro.
But the Bush administration chose not
to exercise this authority. Pharmaceutical industry monopolistic
patent protections are so sacrosanct, the administration decided,
that even urgent U.S. public health needs do not merit any limitation
on patent monopolies.
The administration was motivated in significant
part by fear that if it authorized generic production in the
United States for Cipro, it would undermine its hand in negotiations
at the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Qatar. There,
African and other poor countries are asking for a declaration
that the WTO's intellectual property rules not be interpreted
in ways that undermine efforts to advance public health. Above
all, they want to clarify their existing right under WTO rules
to authorize generic production of on-patent drugs (a practice
known as compulsory licensing). The United States, pathetically,
is opposing this effort.
With the spotlight shining on Bayer's
price-gouging for Cipro, the Department of Health and Human Services
had to take action. It cut a deal with the company to lower Cipro
prices, agreeing on a price tag of 95 cents a pill. That supposedly
cut-rate price turns out to be twice what the same government,
indeed the same government agency, pays the same company for
the same drug under another program.
But though inadequate, the price reduction
did reflect the U.S. government's negotiating leverage -- leverage
that was enhanced by the fact that the government had the authority
to turn to generic manufacturers if Bayer refused to cut a deal.
What hypocrisy! At the same time as it
leveraged the threat of a compulsory license, the administration
is working feverishly in diverse fora -- including the WTO and
the Free Trade Area of the Americas negotiations -- to limit
poor countries' effective ability to do compulsory licensing.
It is time to reverse course, and for
citizens to demand the government prioritize public health over
corporate profit.
In the United States, it is unclear how
much Cipro the government should stockpile as a public health
measure. Other, off-patent antibiotics may be superior and are
cheaper. These other drugs may or may not be effective against
all strains of anthrax. What is clear is that intellectual property
issues should have no impact on public health judgments made
in this context.
Representative Sherrod Brown has introduced
legislation, H.R. 3235, the Public Health Emergency Medicines
Act, that would reiterate the government's ability to do compulsory
licensing in case of public health emergency (the government
currently has this right, without regard to situation of national
emergency) and establish that compensation paid to patent holders
should be "reasonable." It lists a variety of criteria
to determine reasonability, including how much the patent holder
invested and risked in the drug's development, and how significant
the government contribution was to the drug's research and development.
It also would permit the government to authorize generic producers
to manufacture on-patent drugs in the United States for export
to countries undergoing public health emergencies. The Public
Health Emergency Medicines Act should quickly become law.
In international treaty negotiations,
it is time for the United States to stop identifying its interests
only with those of the brand-name drug manufacturers. The government
should immediately cease its shameful opposition to a declaration
that the WTO intellectual property agreement should not hinder
developing country measures to protect public health. It should
agree to accept the few needed clarifications to WTO rules to
make compulsory licensing workable in poor countries over the
long haul. It should end its sneaky efforts in the Free Trade
Area of the Americas and other negotiations to impose technical
rules that would impede compulsory licensing. And Congress should
deny the administration the fast-track authority it seeks to
facilitate negotiation of more trade rules enhancing the brand-name
drug companies' monopoly power.
Russell Mokhiber
is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter.
Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based
Multinational Monitor. They are co-authors of Corporate
Predators: The Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy
(Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1999).
© Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
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