Gays hit ‘drug company power’

The Progressive Organization of Gays in the Philippines (Progay), picketed yesterday the Department of Health (DOH) in Manila to protest alleged abuses by multinational drug companies that cause needless deaths and suffering among people afflicted with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

The picket coincides with similar protests celebrating "Global Day of Action Against Drug Company Power", in Brazil, Chile, Italy, South Africa and the United States.

The action was called for by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (GLHRC) to support the beleaguered South African government which is being sued in its own Supreme Court by 40 different drug companies on charges of violating patents on anti-retrovirals.

Oscar Atadero, Progay secretary, said in a statement that the world’s poor should unite and fight the greed for superprofits by a few dozen drug conglomerates that grossed US$315 billion last year.

"The Philippines and other Third World countries must strive to set up major manufacturing infrastructure for their own medicines and not let the demand for cruel profits to hold the health of six billion people hostage," said Atadero.

Anti-retrovirals are medicines that delay or suppress the ravages of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which destroys the body’s resistance to common infections.

Several other countries such as Brazil and India, which chose to import or manufacture cheaper generic drugs, face legal battles with manufacturers who threaten governments with World Trade Organization (WTO) sanctions.

The drug companies that want the Supreme Court to repeal the Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendment Act of 1997 in South African law, include Glaxo SmithKline, Bristol-Meyer Squibb, Boehringer Ingelheim, Merck and Abbott.

According to the local NGO, Treatment Action Center, 100 South Africans die of advanced AIDS weekly because they cannot afford the high-priced drugs, and millions more will die if the drug companies succeed in their action.

Last year, more than 120,000 people died as a result of AIDS. The health crisis facing South Africa is getting worse.

All anti-HIV/AIDS drugs are manufactured by multinational companies under patent and imported into South Africa. Because the drugs are patented, they are very highly priced, Progay said.

The result is that only the very rich and people with good medical aid coverage can access these medicines.

In the Philippines, an estimated P30,000 are needed monthly for a minimum dose of anti-retrovirals, or more than P500 million a year for the estimated 1,400 people tested positive for HIV. This budget requirement does not include housing, treatment and livelihood requirements of the people who find it hard to find jobs or support themselves once advanced AIDS symptoms develop in infected persons.

Pro-Gay Philippines called on newly appointed DOH Secretary Manuel Dayrit to give concrete support to the campaign by keeping prices of drugs affordable and giving greater support to public health programs for the majority of Filipinos. – Sandy Araneta, Jose Rodel Clapano and Mayen Jaymalin