03/06/01 03:11 PM: Stealing (life) from the poor,

Stealing (life) from the poor, and giving to the rich

In Africa south of the Sahara, roughly 25 million people are infected with HIV and/or AIDS. An amazing 70 percent of the world’s HIV cases are concentrated in this region. In South Africa alone, there are 4.2 million AIDS cases. That’s almost 10 percent of the country’s population! This is probably the greatest health concern facing the world today. Sure, there are the recent outbreaks of mad cow disease and foot and mouth disease in Europe. Thousands of burning cattle carcases is a pretty gruesome picture. I can’t even begin to (nor do I want to) imagine the awful stench that that must produce. The simple fact is that the problem is easy to solve. If humans got over their superiority complex and realized that there is no reason to eat other animals, the problem would be nonexistent. But I will refrain from any further proselytizing on that issue, at least for now. I merely offered that as a comparison to the much greater (harder to solve) problem of the AIDS epidemic. Obviously, education about HIV/AIDS and preventative measures and making contraceptives available is the key to weeding out the problem before its roots grow too deep. But we can’t simply ignore those who are already afflicted with the virus. Getting back to my main purpose, there are companies and organizations that are making AIDS medicines available to Africans (or, in most cases, aid organizations that administer the drugs to Africans, as the majority of the people are still far too poverty-stricken to afford the medicines even at radically slashed prices) at tremendously discounted rates. A year’s supply of AIDS cocktails for just one person can run in the tens of thousands of dollars. I think I read just the other day that Doctors Without Borders was somehow able to whittle the price down to $600. That may haven taken some fuzzy math to accomplish, but the result sounds good to me. But 39 drug companies are now suing the South African government over patent infringements or some such trivial thing. I do realize that drug companies spend large amounts of money on research and development of new drugs, but there are times when something larger than money is at stake. If this isn’t one of those times, I don’t know what is. And if these drug companies are so bent out of shape about people buying their competitor’s products, why don’t they try offering their own products at a reasonable price? You just cannot sell a $10,000+ product to 4.2 million poverty-stricken South Africans. How are they supposed to pay for it? These giant companies fiercely advocate free market capitalism, yet they cry foul when competition comes along.

Kevin Peliusczak