U.S. Retreats From Earlier Move To Keep Drugs From Poor Nations
By MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration scrambled to undo the public-relations damage caused when it blocked an international agreement to allow developing countries easier access to generic versions of prescription drugs to combat AIDS, malaria, cholera and other infectious diseases.
Just hours after talks broke down late Friday in Geneva, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick announced that the U.S. would temporarily allow nations to override American drug-company patents and export inexpensive, generic versions of brand-name pharmaceuticals to help African and other very poor nations.
"The U.S. has worked intensively to find a solution that will provide life-saving drugs to those truly in need, and will continue to work towards that end," Mr. Zoellick said. "We urge others to join us in this moratorium to help poor countries get access to emergency life-saving drugs."
U.S. trade officials had been working on the backup plan during the last week of the negotiations, as it became apparent that Washington might soon find itself in the unenviable position of being the sole obstacle to an agreement seen by many as a humanitarian imperative.
World Trade Organization members agreed in Doha, Qatar, in November 2001, that poor countries should, under international rules, be able to produce their own generics to deal with public-health emergencies, without permission from the companies that hold the patents. Many poor nations, however, argued they didn't have the industrial capacity to produce quality drugs, and asked that they be allowed to import generics. WTO members pledged to resolve that issue by the end of this year.
The talks collapsed, however, over the issue of which diseases would be eligible for the patent exemptions, and the Bush administration did indeed get the blame. "The U.S. has announced that it cannot join the consensus," Brazil's negotiator, Antonio de Aguiar Patriota, told reporters in Geneva.
Major developing nations, such as Brazil and India, said drugs for a vast array of diseases, including cancer, heart disease and asthma, should be covered by the exemptions. Leading Democratic lawmakers and health activists echoed that position.
"In the future, many patients will be excluded from access to life-saving treatment because they can't afford brand-name drugs," warned Ellen 't Hoen of the medical group Doctors Without Borders.
The U.S., pressed by the pharmaceuticals industry, wanted to limit the list to infectious diseases such as AIDS and tuberculosis. American trade officials even charged that the other nations wanted patent exemptions for such non-life-saving drugs as Viagra.
Pharmaceutical companies warned that broader exemptions would cut profits to such a degree that they would reduce their research into new drugs.
The WTO members agreed to reconvene next year and try to reach a deal by Feb. 11.
The administration's stopgap plan -- essentially a unilateral implementation of the American negotiating position -- will be in place until an agreement is reached, Mr. Zoellick said. In the meantime, U.S. officials believe they have regained some of the moral high ground they knew they had appeared to lose Friday. "We've done our part," said a senior U.S. trade official. "If others will do that, we'll have solved the problem."
Write to Michael M. Phillips at michael.phillips@wsj.com
Updated December 23, 2002
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