So how much of W’s vaunted $15 billion for AIDS in Africa got disbused within the 5 years? How much ever got disbursed, even with life-denying strings attached?

Thank you Christy — the President-elect made a heartening statement today, which actually included the word “science” here

You are most welcome, Teddy. And everyone else who, like me, has lost someone you care about to HIV/AIDS. Do read that last “reach out” link…it’s a heartbreaker in so many ways. We think we have come so far…but we lie to ourselves, don’t we?

Thanks Christy for lifting this up.
Thank God for everyone who still makes this horrible disease seen as Human.
I still think the film Philadelphia hit a certain mark.
Damn freaking shame people move on to some other threat du jour.

Education Education Education……. sex ed, prevention ed, PSA’s everyday so that every person living in the USA know how you contract AIDS and how to prevent it……. It just makes me sick…… I heard today somewhere that 80% of new HIV cases is in African American women……

When will the flat earthers wake up and realize that HIV/AIDS isn’t an unknown to be chased down by zealotry and bogeymen.

I was a medical case manager for several AIDS patients in the early days in the 90’s where so many of the drugs were dreams or experimental and not covered…..

One young man’s mother had to drive 100 miles to a specific hospital that would allow him in the door…… the local hospital would not let him inside their doors…..These were the dark ages of HIV/AIDS treatment…. it nearly broke my heart too many times…..

I hope you don’t think I’m shallow for mentioning Philadelphia. I thought it was important to put a human personal touch on this epidemic.
But, now that you’ve mentioned African Women, that opens up a whole different can of worms, doesn’t it.

Here is lovely portrait of a beautiful young woman. She took care of her brother while he died of AIDS. She later committed suicide after having contracted the disease.

http://www.philipgrausman.com/Roxanne.htm

The start of that last article I linked just took me back to those early days — having to use only paper plates in her family’s home so that nothing she touched would be eaten on by others. Having nowhere to go to live so she’s living in her car. Just heartbreaking…

It is very important that there is a face for HIV/AIDS….. can you imagine hospitals decided to refuse to allow a bleeding patient in the door?

It was when “regular” Americans started seeing the faces, the quilts, and when the disease moved into the general population…… a woman who had surgery with transfusions died from AIDS, children with hemophilia who tested HIV positive….. we finally saw the disease does not discriminate …… everyone can be at risk…

Yes, yes and yes.
Until people KNOW someone who has or has died from the disease, it’s hard for them to relate.
Like a lot of stuff we talk about…all the biased, social injustices.

the current fiscal crisis threatens to undermine funding for various prevention programs across Africa and Asia and elsewhere.

aren’t the production of less expensive generic versions still blocked by US enforced intellectual property rules? it’s been awhile since i followed “free” trade developments, but that was the major problem a few years ago – not funding.

bah, pharmaceuticals is another industry that needs to be nationalized.

To this day I blame Ronald Reagan and his homophobia…… HIS administration knew about the HIV/AIDS when the numbers were in the hundreds…. maybe thousands BUT because Reagan believed they deserved it……. refused to do anything….

HIV/AIDS should be named the Reagan disease, he should own it (ya I know he’s dead) but his legacy MUST be branded with what he did…..

I wonder then the itching is going to stop…… lord almighty it is driving me nuts…

I read “And the Band Plays On” when it first came out and I was losing friends regularly to AIDS. The book is really a great read and puts a great perspective on how the many conflicts of interest–whether in the gay community or the blood banks and laboratories–that ultimately contributed to the contagion.

A terrible tragedy that goes on and on, as you said.

HIV/AIDS should be named the Reagan disease, he should own it.

I agree, this an event that might have been controlled through a response that showed everyone how serious it was in the beginning. The respones was it doesn’t bother my people and there is very few communities that can say that they responded.
Ronnie Ray Gun
jo6pac

Intellectual property rules give pharma way too much protection. Even a free trader like Bhagwati is strongly against what pharma did in trade negotiations.

…Then again, virtually all arguements made buy economists use cost-benefit analysis, which means arguing for patents and their lengths in terms of whether they do good or harm-a utilitarian form of analysis instead of a rights-based approach.

So with the conclusion of the Urugruay Round of multilateral trade negotiations and the establishment of the World Trade Organization in 1994, an astonishing capture of the WTO took place: TRIPs were introduced into the WTO integrally, as one of three legs of a tripod, the other two legs certainly belonged in a trade body. TRIPs by contrast were like the introduction of cancer cells into a healthy body. For virtually the first time, the corporate lobbies in pharmaceuticals and software had distorted and deformed an important multilateral institution, turning it away from its trade mission and transforming it into a royalty collection agency.

The consequences have been momentous. Now every lobby in the rich coountries wants to put in its own agenda…

TRIP=Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights

In Defense of Globalization, p. 183

The bigotry towards victims of AIDS is still around in the bigotry towards same sex marriage. The bigots just hide behind God.

from stiglitz in 2003:

Drugs and intellectual property. The intellectual property regime adopted in the last round of trade negotiations – Trips – deprived millions in the developing world of access to life-saving drugs. As a chorus of researchers has pointed out, the provisions, pushed by the pharmaceutical companies, were so unbalanced that they were bad for scientific progress. Here, there has been some progress – but not enough. Provisions demanded by the US would have made it difficult for small countries to gain affordable access.

from stiglitz in 2004:

The second issue concerns the unbalanced intellectual property provisions (Trips) of the Uruguay round of trade talks, dictated by America’s pharmaceutical and entertainment industries. These provisions restricted countries from making generic imitations of drugs, making many critically important medicines unaffordable in developing countries.

Spearheaded by worries about Aids, activists demanded that something be done. Just before last year’s trade talks in Mexico, the US made some concessions so that it was no longer the only hold-out. In its bilateral trade agreements, however, it is demanding what is becoming known as “Trips-plus”, which would strengthen intellectual property rights further, to ensure that countries only have the right to produce inexpensive generic drugs during epidemics and other emergencies.

The global consensus, reflected in the commission report, calls for more exceptions so that, say, drugs can be made available in any case where to do so could save a life. To those confronting the prospect of death, what matters is access to life-saving drugs, not whether what is killing the person is part of an epidemic.

bad for scientific progress too (1999):

Stiglitz argued that a system of strong IP protection would also hamper the pace of innovation, and that knowledge will lead to greater commercial benefits if it is treated more as a public good than private property. A hawkish approach to intellectual property rights, he predicts, will encourage monopoly practices.

Stiglitz is understood to have wanted these views reflected in the World Bank’s latest World Development Report. However, sources at the bank say that Stiglitz was unable to have his way following objections from the United States.

The US government argued that member states of the World Trade Organization (WTO) have already agreed on the need for strong IP systems under the WTO’s Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement (TRIPs).

Nonetheless, Stiglitz revealed in his talk that when he worked in the White House in Washington, both the Council of Economic Advisers and the Office of Science and Technology Policy were worried about the potentially adverse consequence of strong IPR for innovation. “If practices that [some companies] are engaged in are not against the law, then the issue is, perhaps the law should be changed,” he added.

alternative: prizes not patents

There is an alternative way of financing and incentivizing research that, at least in some instances, could do a far better job than patents, both in directing innovation and ensuring that the benefits of that knowledge are enjoyed as widely as possible: a medical prize fund that would reward those who discover cures and vaccines. Since governments already pay the cost of much drug research directly or indirectly, through prescription benefits, they could finance the prize fund, which would award the biggest prizes for developers of treatments or preventions for costly diseases affecting hundreds of millions of people.

TRIPS is the opposite of free trade. it was only included in trade negotiation because that was the way for the US to force other countries to agree with a crazy policy. after there already is WIPO (the world intellectual property organization).

i’d really like to know how many people were killed by the trade policies rubin and summers pushed during the clinton years.

p.s. iirc bhagwati is not a batshit crazy free trader and does not advocate for destabilizing capital liberalization.

Bhagwati seems to be a solid citizen. I bought his book when he did a signing in 04 but didn’t read it until this year. I remember his talk as saying that trade was great but that protesters had good points that should be considered as modifications. His book is of course more complicated and he excoriates trade liberalizer interferers brutally when he disagrees with them ( like expectations that developing countries should pay the same and have the same environmental constraints as rich countries that can afford to pay more), while doing the opposite when rich countries misbehave. I don’t agree with everything he writes, but his reasoning is clear and I think he has no hidden agendas, unlike the Clintonistas.

thanks tw3k. don’t think i can look tonight… but maybe tomorrow. so sad.

the biggest issue the protesters had (i was one of them in miami for the ftaa protests in 2004) is that corporations have a seat at the table but that everyone else is kept out – no representation from labor rights, no environmentalist, so human rights advocates – nothing that resembles a democratic or representative process. that was the reason the direct action folks wanted to pull down a bit of the fence encircling the area of the talks were being held – to show symbolically that the people must be permitted inside.

Bhagwati points out that isn’t true, that NGO environmental groups, labor groups, human rights groups have a lot of influence via lobbying in various countries and by demonstrations such as the one you participated in. Borrow the book from the library and read it. I think what he writes about those interests may infuriate you, but also open your eyes to the fact that there is more influence than you think.

BTW, selise, the book is an easy read. It’s written in a breezy style which becomes emotional when he feels strongly in a positive or negative (e.g. quote above). It is also divided into small sections, so you can read a bit, put it down, pick it up again & have section headings remind you where you are.

i’m not a fan of most NGOs – but the point was that there are meetings where deals are written and stuff gets put in that no one knows about because there is no transparent process for citizen review. it’s like how we got pissed off when the fisa legislation is made public less than 24 hours before it’s voted on. yes, the aclu can lobby – but that’s not the same thing as an open and transparent process. it irks me to have an opponent characterize the position of people i’ve worked with.

i guess i really should read his book. thanks for the recommendation. all i can say for now is that it will go on the list.

Glad to see this post Christy. It seems like only yesterday, but it was Jan. 1994 when my brother died of AIDS. He was a dentist and pretty well informed on medical issues but he did not believe the new drugs coming available were going to be effective for him. If only he could have held on a bit longer. If only——- god i miss him.