The
complaint:
"The behaviour of multinational drug companies has been condemned as 'unethical' by the World Health Organisation after it has been discovered that poor people in the Third World are having AIDS treatments withdrawn after taking part in trials which have proved the success of the new 'wonder drugs'. Almost ninety-five per cent of AIDS victims live in the developing world and are not receiving treatment because of drug costs. The new anti-AIDS cocktails, tested in the Third World but mainly used in the West, can cost up to nineteen thousand pounds sterling a year per patient, thus earning millions for the pharmaceutical industry. It has been discovered that in South Africa, where two point four million people are now HIV positive, AIDS patients must first agree that they can be taken off costly drugs when trials end. Doctors say many patients cannot read or understand the forms they sign."
The Observer,
June 8, 1997
Lucy Johnston
and Ruaridh Nicholl
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The third world has started whining again. Usually, they are justified in
doing so. We, the first world countries, have robbed them, enslaved them,
used them as pawns in the Cold War chess game, ignored them, bullied them,
and recently, the most immoral among us have used them as guinea pigs. We
have no defense for any of these actions. But we can ignore their latest
complaint. As the AIDS "drug cocktail" proves to be successful in
restricting the replication of the HIV virus in infected patients, at least
for now, the third world loudly cries foul. Their argument centers around
the point that the high price is deliberately set to keep the miracle drugs
away from third world countries, many of which have a most dire need for
such drugs, and is a reflection of first world racial bias. To which I have
to say: smarten up. The third world is over-looking the largest factor
influencing the increasingly rapid spread of HIV/AIDS through their
countries: education. The first 15 plus years of the HIV outbreak in the
United States had no medical cure to fall back on and no rich Uncle to look
to for solutions. It was fought though education and awareness. Even when
George Bush ignored the problem, when the religious right and the Catholic
Church - certain that abstinence would save us - fought against sex
education and condom handouts, and the DEA prevented clean needle programs,
those who knew better rallied and got the word out. The number of new
HIV/AIDS cases in the US leveled out in the early nineties, well before the
"drug cocktail". So, to the countries whose AIDS cases are exploding out of
control, here is some advice. India, get those freelancing men under
control. If half of your society insists on clinging to the idea that
sleeping around is a right and that it is not masculine to use a condom,
Pakistan's nuclear program is the least of your worries; natural selection
is going to do you in. You're going to quickly go from the world's largest,
dumbest democracy to its smallest, smartest one. But hey, maybe that's for
the best. Africa, check it out . Despots who are willing to starve their
enemies to death are willing to let a virus wipe them out as well,
especially a virus nobody can control. After all, how can a disease be their
fault? You'll never get smarter until you lose the dictators. Don't whine
about how hard that is either, as that leads to my second point. You'll
never get smarter until you stop listening to organized religion. If you're
going to shoot each other over inconsequential differences in non-existent
deities you're never going to get anywhere. Want proof? One word. Ireland.
Throw off the church and the state and things will start to look up . Once
you've actually done something, anything, other than just looking to someone
else to solve your problems, than you can start to bitch about high costs.
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Click here for a report on Indian men sleeping around.
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Click here to read about the Catholic dilemma in regards to fighting AIDS.
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Nukes, Schmukes.
What about
HIV?:
I.S. Gilada, secretary general of the Bombay-based private Indian Health Association, said on Sunday that some 10,000 Indians will die each day from AIDS by the year 2000..."India will need six times as many hospital beds as it has today to manage just the AIDS cases," Gilada added. While the World Health Organization has said that only 728 cases of AIDS had been officially reported in India by last August, approximately 1.5 million of 900 million Indians are believed to be HIV-infected.
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