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To: LLCF who wrote (32151)	4/23/2003 12:57:06 AM
From: EL KABONG!!!	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

DAK, What amazes me is that the vast majority of these writers/reporters that are "pooh-poohing" the whole SARS episode are people who have little to no medical training. Many of them have written about other "conspiracies" in other fields, such as finance and politics just to name two. Last week the guy was reporting on the Iraqi war, and this week he's a medical expert on SARS. Personally, I think SARS is something to be reckoned with. While we in the USA have yet to experience a crisis with the disease, it's certainly only a matter of time before the disease finds its way within our borders. There's no way to know for sure if our medical communities have learned anything from the experiences in China, Hong Kong and/or Toronto. If history is any indicator, probably not, as the mistakes made in China or Hong Kong were likely repeated in Toronto. Most people might not realize just how difficult it is to get the undivided attention of an organization like WHO or CDC. These guys are the big guns in medicine. They don't drop current research in favor of the disease du jour easily. If the big guns are paying close attention, then I'm paying close attention. I suspect that they strongly suspect that this epidemic has only just started. I suspect that they already know that things are not under control, and that the situation will get much worse. I suspect that no one is sounding the panic alarm simply because to do so would most certainly cause great economic harm around the world, and if mistakes are made in predicting the course of the disease, no one wants to take responsibility for the costs of those errors in trying to predict what will happen next. But, that's just my opinion. Whatever happens will happen. Ultimately, I don't think that masks and vitamins and whatever will help an individual. If one catches the disease, one catches it, and then one prays that one will be among the fortunate survivors. And one also prays that surviving the disease will grant some sort of future immunity should the virus mutate. But as I said, only my opinion... KJC

To: LLCF who wrote (32151)	4/23/2003 1:01:12 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 74559

Bush buys good behavior by using AIDS as a weapon. Nice headline for a newspaper right? Bush asked USD10billion from you money LLCF to be used to buy good behavior of countries and support the adventure. But it is not new. During the cold war was already happening. The World Bank was financing many projects in countries that the US wanted to be in line and behaving well. An Assuan Dam in Egypt, a relocation scheme in Indonesia and the guys would walk the line. Do not support the coalition? The no money for fighting AIDS!!! Bush’s forgotten message on HIV/Aids Published on Feb 8, 2003 As the world watched to learn America’s plans for its war with Iraq, people might forget that US President George W Bush also urged Congress, during his second State of the Union address in January, to approve an additional US$10 billion dollars to fight HIV/Aids overseas. But Bush’s initiative, and the money, is an encouraging sign in the global effort to fight this epidemic, particularly after America suffered international condemnation with regard to the issue of access to drugs for HIV/Aids patients in poor countries. Last month, the US delegates at the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) meeting of the Council on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (Trips) in Geneva efficiently blocked a proposed agreement that would have provided access to generic drugs for poor countries which are incapable of producing them. In his speech, Bush urged Congress to approve US$10 billion [Bt430 billion] in funds to battle HIV/Aids in the hardest-hit countries in Africa and the Caribbean over the next five years. If approved, the additional funds would provide anti-retroviral drugs to two million Africans afflicted by HIV/Aids, and will support awareness programmes that could prevent seven million new HIV infections. Bush’s initiative, as laudable as it is, cannot be considered as separate from the US policy on access to drugs – a recent source of tension at the WTO. To convince the international community that it really means what it promises when it comes to the humanitarian issue – Aids advocates would rather use the stronger term of the right to health – Washington should ensure that its latest pledge for HIV/Aids funds for patients in the hardest-hit continent of Africa, goes along with its practice at WTO negotiations on the issue of access to drugs. In light of the WTO’s two crucial meetings next week in Geneva and Tokyo to solve the impasse on this very crucial issue and to accept the rights of the poor countries to import cheap generic drugs, Washington’s expression of a consistent policy is compulsory. The US, which opposed the WTO proposed agreement on the access to drugs issue, reasoned that the “ambiguous” language of the draft agreement would open room for patent abuse on drugs that treat non-communicable diseases such as asthma, cancer, and diabetes. The US proposed instead that a footnote be included in the draft pact that would restrict ailments to be covered to just 22. The developing countries members of the WTO disagreed. In a follow-up to the US proposal, European Union Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy this month proposed that the World Health Organisation be brought in as a “trusted third party” to advise WTO members on when generic drugs should be allowed and for what ailments. This proposal was also turned down by the developing countries. It remains to be seen if the US’s fears of abuse of patents for other diseases that might not carry the same gravity and scale as HIV/Aids, tuberculosis and malaria will hold true. Advocates for a global campaign for treatment, however, rejected the idea such abuse would ever take place in developing countries with low or no industrial production capacity for the pharmaceutical sector. The real concern for Washington, they said, were countries like India, China and Brazil with the capacity to produce generic drugs. They continue to be the major troublemakers for its pharmaceutical industry. India’s largest drug maker in terms of sales, Ranbaxy Laboratories, for example, recently launched a new anti-retroviral drug which is a generic formulation of a patented medication made by GlaxoSmithKline. A Chinese drug company, Shanghai Desano Biopharmaceutical, has also recently begun distributing the country's first domestically produced generic anti-retroviral pill which combines two major Aids drugs. According to the Chinese Health Ministry, 10 other Chinese drug companies have applied for permission to make generic versions of Aids-related drugs with expired patents, and some might begin producing them by the end of the year. Brazil, whose factories producing generic drugs to treat its patients for free, and Thailand, with a similar potential capacity, are also rainmakers from the perspective of international drug industry. But just as Washington is powerful enough to arm-twist countries to yield to its trade agenda, even pressuring them to give protection for the pharmaceutical sector that were beyond those required by Trips, there seems to be little that it should worry about. Indeed, Washington has plenty of trade weapons in stock to dispense at will whenever it feel like being “challenged”, regardless of the fact that these tools are not officially allowed in the Trips agreement. What’s more, some developing countries are more ready to yield than others, without America having to exert its power that much. In the context of HIV/Aids, President Bush said that his nation can lead the world in sparing innocent people from a plague of nature. His trade representatives at the WTO should match his vision by their action. They should allow poor countries the right to import generic drugs and to decide by themselves what are the health emergencies threatening their people.