104 lines
5.2 KiB
Plaintext
104 lines
5.2 KiB
Plaintext
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Msg#: 9914 *Samples* 03-06-92 00:09:00
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Subj: WHO'S MAKING MONEY OUT OF AIDS?
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Via The NY Transfer News Service 718-448-2358, 718-448-2683
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GREEN LEFT WEEKLY Issue #46 March 4, 1992
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Who's making money out of AIDS?
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By Steve Painter
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The AIDS pandemic is a disaster for humanity, but a gold mine for
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some multinational chemical companies, it seems. While AIDS is still
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spreading in advanced countries such as Australia and the USA, nine
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out of 10 new HIV infections are now occurring in the Third World.
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However, most treatments coming out of the laboratories of North
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America and Europe are affordable only in the richest countries.
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In Africa, where it is expected that 18 million people will be HIV
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positive by the end of the century, most governments and health
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authorities can't even afford the blood tests that would enable them
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to keep track of the problem. In South Africa, the richest country on
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the continent and by no means the one with the greatest AIDS problem,
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it is estimated that the direct and indirect cost of the disease will
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be around $20 billion in the next eight years. HIV infection is
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expected to treble in Asia within five years.
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Meanwhile, the chemical giant Burroughs-Wellcome has cornered the
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market in AZT (zidovudine), the main drug so far with a proven ability
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to slow the progress of AIDS. Last year, the company raked in about
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$300 million from AZT - just one of the newer lines in an extensive
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range. The drug was licensed for use in humans only four years ago.
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About 40% of the take from AZT is estimated to be profit, even after
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the company reduced the price by around 20% in response to protests.
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In the US, a year's supply of AZT for one person costs around
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US$8000, perhaps okay for those who have adequate medical insurance,
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but a disaster for those who don't. US AIDS activists say these prices
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don't reflect the drug's production cost; bootleg supplies are much
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cheaper, though illegal. Australian prices for patented AZT are even
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higher, largely because the drug companies are aware that Medicare
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will pick up the tab.
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The company is not simply recovering development costs. A March 1991
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court action by the New York-based People With AIDS group made it
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clear Burroughs-Wellcome contributed very little to the development of
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the drug, and its right to the patent is dubious. The AIDS-related
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qualities of the drug were first developed by researchers for the US
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National Cancer Institute, not Burroughs- Wellcome.
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Jerome Horowitz of the Michigan Cancer Foundation discovered AZT in
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1964, but at the time it seemed to have no useful role and it was
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extremely toxic. In 1974, Wolfram Ostertag at Germany's Max Planck
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Institute discovered that AZT inhibited retroviruses in mice, but at
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that time no such viruses were known to exist in humans.
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Wellcome studied the compound from 1982 to 1984, but in 1984
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declined to participate in an NCI search for drugs that would work
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against HIV/AIDS because, it said, human retroviruses were not
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treatable, live HIV was too dangerous to work with and HIV experiments
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were unlikely to be profitable.
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Eventually Wellcome handed over some compounds to the NCI for study,
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and the NCI discovered the AIDS-inhibiting qualities of AZT. Wellcome
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immediately filed for a British patent even though its scientists had
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not discovered the drug and had not participated in the HIV
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experiments.
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It later took out a US patent as well. The US application did not
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reveal that work on the drug in humans had been done at the NCI and
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Duke University. The patent was approved in 1988.
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In 1989, NCI director Sam Broder and several colleagues wrote to the
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New York Times saying, "one of the key obstacles to the development of
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AZT was that Burroughs-Wellcome did not work with live AIDS virus nor
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wish to receive samples from AIDS patients".
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It seems the prices of other AIDS drugs are also kept outrageously
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high by the fact that their patents are owned by private chemical
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companies. Acyclovir, another Wellcome line, netted the company around
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$400 million last year. This one is more established than AZT, having
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been on the shelves for nearly a decade.
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Burroughs-Wellcome is by no means the only AIDS profiteer. In 1984
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Lypho-Med, a smaller US company, increased the price of a pneumonia-
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fighting drug, pentamidine, from around $34 to around $136 per unit as
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its use increased among people with AIDS. By 1988, public protest
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forced the price down again.
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Another company, Roche, controls ddI and ddC, which are similar to
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AZT and often used in conjunction with it. They cost about two-thirds
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the price of AZT. Roche also sells Bactrim, used to fight pneumonia
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and urinary infections in people with AIDS. Private multinational
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companies control most of the research into AIDS because they have
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budgets many times larger than those of most government research
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bodies.
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At least a dozen potential AIDS vaccines are being tested at
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present. If the chemical companies run true to form, none of them is
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likely to be much cheaper than AZT.
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--- Tm_Write Version 1.30 --- Get ALL the News That Doesn't Fit -
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* Origin: Samples Newsfeed - NY Transfer News Service 718-448-2358
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(1033/1)
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