South Africans protest MNCs' drugs policy

By M. S. Prabhakara

CAPE TOWN, MARCH 5. Thousands of people marched to the U.S. embassy in Pretoria and its consulates in Cape Town and Durban today, demanding the withdrawal of the court action by the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Association of South Africa (PMASA) representing South African subsidiaries of about 40 multinational companies, most of them U.S.-based, challenging the Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendment Act, 1997.

The demonstrations on Monday coincided with the first day's hearing in the case brought by the PMASA against the Government before the Pretoria High Court. The protests were organised by the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the South African Communist Party, some structures of the African National Congress and the Treatment Action Campaign, which has been at the forefront of a movement to secure the provision of cheap and effective drugs, if necessary by defying patent laws, to victims of HIV/AIDS.

According to an SABC radio report, similar protests are taking place in London and several other world capitals.

The court action by the drug companies is also opposed by Oxfam and Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres). A media release by these organisations said the court action by the pharmaceutical companies ``is a warning to other developing countries that many within the pharmaceutical industry will use any tactic to defend their patents, whatever the cost in human suffering.''

The legal action essentially seeks to stop the Government from taking any steps to make cheaper generic drugs available to the people.

This is precisely what the legislation amending the original Act was passed in October 1997 seeks to do. Without exception, every medicine manufactured by a South African subsidiary of a multinational pharmaceutical company and marketed under a trade name costs several times more than the same medicine manufactured, say by an Indian or Thailand subsidiary of the same multinational, and marketed under the same trade name in those countries.

The Act also provides for the substitution of patented drugs with generics; and for compulsory licensing where prices of drugs are inordinately high. It also seeks to introduce an element of price control through the mechanism of an exit price, something South African business accustomed to total absence of any price controls finds horrifying.

The pharmaceutical companies are challenging the validity of the legislation on the ground that it violates South Africa's membership obligations to the WTO, in particular the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The Government has, however, maintained that this is not true, citing the provisions in TRIPS which allow Governments to take special measures to protect the health of citizens.

The latest issue of ANC Today, the weekly online journal of the ANC, points out that South Africa is not alone in taking recourse to parallel importation to address the problem of unreasonably high prices of products. It cites the practice of the E.U. within the member countries and also of the U.S. itself ``which has adopted a version of this practice'', allowing for the ``re- importation'' of U.S. goods.

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Section  : International
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