Brazil Won't Accept Gore's AIDS Death Sentence: Rejects Patent Laws

May 5 (EIRNS)--In announcing May 3 that Brazil, for the first time ever, would exercise its right to break a patent protection on an anti-AIDS drug, President Lula da Silva invoked the universal principle that the general welfare comes before profit. Brazil will import generic versions of Merck's efavirenz, from Indian companies, at less than one-third the cost of what Merck charges, he and his Health Minister announced.

"Not only for ourselves, but for every human being on the planet who is infected, we had to take this decision," Lula explained. Any discovery which is in the interest of humanity should be the patrimony of humanity. The inventor should benefit, and should earn his money, but "it is not possible that someone gets rich at the expense of others." When all is said and done, if we must chose between business and health, "we are going to take care of our health," President Lula stated.

Brazil is doing what racist Al Gore would not permit South Africa to do in 1998, when, in the name of protecting "intellectual property rights," then Vice President Gore threatened an economic boycott against that nation, if it proceeded with a law which that allowed the development of affordable generic drugs to fight AIDS.

South Africa wanted to implement a program similar to Brazil's program, where the government provides cheap, or in the case of Brazil, free anti-retroviral drugs to any Brazilian diagnosed with AIDS. Brazil began its program in 1996, and within five years, the death rate from AIDS had fallen by 50%, and the extent of the epidemic was less than half of what it had been projected to be before the program started. In South Africa, where Gore succeeded in stopping such a program, the AIDS epidemic is galloping.

Paying Merck triple the price for a drug used by nearly 40% of Brazilians with AIDS, would have bankrupted Brazil's free distribution program.

AIDS activists in Thailand, which legally broke patent protection on the same AIDS drug last November, welcomed the decision by Brazil, and called on other poor nations to follow suit in defense of life.

For Thailand's parallel fight for health over profits, see

For an historical view of the global battle against the pharmaceutical companies killer grip on AIDS drugs, see.