------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Feb. 7, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
AIDS AND THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM By Elijah Crane The World Economic Forum says it is bringing together leaders of 1,000 of the most powerful corporations in the world at its meetings in New York. The group's Web site claims this will be "the global summit which defines the political, economic and business agenda for the year." Merck and Pfizer Inc., two pharmaceutical giants and manufacturers of HIV/AIDS medications, are among the many transnational corporations and consultant firms that serve as WEF "strategic" and "event" partners. The death toll from AIDS may surpass that of the bubonic plague, which claimed the lives of 40 million people in Asia and Europe during the 14th century. (Family Health International AIDS Institute) Currently, 40 million people are living with HIV/AIDS in the world. More than 25 million others have already perished. Every day, 14,000 more people are infected; 2,000 are children under the age of 15. Ninety-five percent of new infections are in oppressed countries. (UNAIDS) Merck was a participant last year in a vicious lawsuit against the government of South Africa filed by 40 of the largest pharmaceutical corporations. These profiteers intended to prevent sub-Saharan countries like South Africa from producing generic versions of the life-saving HIV/AIDS drugs for which pharmaceutical corporations hold patents. An international movement fought this racist attack on the oppressed nation and pushed back the vultures, who were forced to withdraw their suit. In an effort to counter mounting negative publicity, several drug companies are offering discounted drugs to underdeveloped countries where HIV/AIDS is most prevalent. This is really no deal at all. Even if medication costs were reduced to $1 a day, they would remain out of reach for those who need them most. This disingenuous price cut is in the pharmaceuticals' self-interest. A recent pitch from Bristol-Myers Squibb and GlaxoSmithKline--both among the plaintiffs in the lawsuit--proposed to lower the prices of HIV/AIDS drugs for China, contingent upon long-term patent protections. (Jan. 24 AsiaPort Daily News) Their motivation is plainly to protect their profits. The pharmaceutical corporations claim no responsibility for the inaccessibility of their expensive medicines to overwhelming numbers of workers and oppressed people around the world living with HIV/AIDS. Instead, they blame the governments of countries that have suffered centuries of oppression under colonial rule for their inability to purchase and provide the drugs. The formerly colonized countries are not able to create national HIV/AIDS service programs because years of extraction of their rich resources have made them poor and the imperialist powers extremely wealthy, leaving these super-exploited countries in debt. Then the International Monetary Fund, dominated by U.S. banks, demands they impose austerity measures and forgo social programs in order to repay the exorbitant debt. HEALTH CARE FOR PEOPLE, NOT FOR PROFIT! The IMF, World Bank and World Economic Forum are cut from the same cloth. Corporate drug kings are an integral thread in that capitalist fabric. Health care for profit is part and parcel of the imperialist penetration into markets around the globe. Any solutions to social problems conceived by the profiteers will never meet the needs of the world's people. They will never solve the underlying crisis that has exacerbated the spread of the devastating HIV/AIDS pandemic: poverty and oppression. In fact, they ensure that the conditions for the disease persist. Mass unemployment, homelessness and malnutrition provide a breeding ground for the spread of illness. Without access to health care, millions of poor and oppressed people are condemned to infection, disease and death. For women and lesbian, gay, bi and trans people, the added oppression makes access to jobs, housing and health care more difficult, increasing the conditions for disease and leaving them more susceptible to HIV/AIDS. Women make up almost 50 percent of the daily new infections worldwide. Until 1993, there was not one woman-specific illness on the CDC's list of opportunistic infections used to differentiate between being HIV positive and having full-blown AIDS. Women's symptoms still go largely unrecognized, and studies on woman-to-woman transmission have yet to be championed from on high. Millions on every continent are suffering with HIV/AIDS, which has become the fourth leading cause of death worldwide. (UNAIDS) As George W. Bush requests a $48 billion increase for the Pentagon, he has cut the U.S. money allocated for the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and malaria by $50 million. Throughout the U.S., funding that was previously available for HIV/AIDS services and prevention programs, meager as it was, has been drastically cut. As a result, many agencies are struggling to keep their doors open. Forced reductions of staff lower the quality of care while increasing the caseload of service providers. Since Sept. 11, AIDS agencies in New York have faced drastic funding cuts. As private and corporate foundation funding and federal monies decrease, the financial burden for addressing the pandemic increasingly shifts to workers and oppressed and those infected/affected. The tireless efforts of the AIDS movement forced the health crisis into public view in the 1980s. The Reagan administration refused even to utter the word "AIDS" for more than six years into the epidemic. Reagan's hush was the impetus for the popular slogan: Silence=Death. This heroic movement has made many achievements throughout more than two decades of battling the mega-corporations that control the fate of millions. But how can the struggle against this pandemic be won once and for all? With life-saving HIV drugs in the hands of global prescription drug lords and profiteers, HIV/AIDS activists are compelled to fight for reforms like lower costs for medicines and access to generic drugs. Even when those gains are won, the vast majority of those in need cannot afford treatment, which should be a human right. The HIV/AIDS crisis will never be solved so long as prescription drug lords and other capitalist criminals that make up the WEF are determining the distribution of resources in the world and ultimately the fate of the people. In the hands of the workers and oppressed who have been most affected, a health-care system would function to solve problems like HIV/AIDS and not to generate super-profits. The treatment needs of the population would be the first consideration in a social system based on planned production to meet human needs. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
