[482] in peace2
reminder: friday vigil
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sanjay Basu)
Wed Nov 29 21:58:27 2000
Message-Id: <200011300258.VAA04471@melbourne-city-street.MIT.EDU>
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 21:58:11 -0500
To: peace-list@mit.edu
From: Sanjay Basu <sanjayb@MIT.EDU>
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hi guys:<br>
<br>
a reminder about friday's vigil at pfizer.<br>
<br>
-sanjay<br>
<br>
<font face="Verdana" size=5 color="#000000"><b>Help MIT students get AIDS
drugs to Africa.<br>
<br>
How?<br>
<br>
Join us as we rally in solidarity against Pfizer’s price embargo on AIDS
drugs provision to African nations.<br>
<br>
What are we talking about?<br>
<br>
<u>PFIZER FACT SHEET: <br>
<br>
</font></b></u><font face="Symbol" size=3 color="#000080">·
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" color="#000080">Pfizer makes a
life-saving drug called fluconazole, which treats two AIDS related
opportunistic diseases a painful and deadly brain infection called
cryptococcal meningitis and another potentially fatal disease called
esophageal candidiasis. Ten percent (10%) of 34.5 million HIV/AIDS
sufferers worldwide, 3-4 million people, will succumb to these two
diseases (see <i>Income Inequality and Health</i> for details). <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Symbol">·
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">Fluconazole costs $12.20
wholesale in the U.S., and through local subsidiaries is sold for $4.15
per pill to the South African government and $7.00 per pill on the
private market (retail price $20.75). In Kenya, where Pfizer also has
exclusive rights to make it, fluconazole costs $18.00 per pill. Contrast
that with Thailand, where generic versions are allowed and the drug costs
24 cents per pill (see Jim Kim's article in <i>JAMA</i> for
details).<br>
<br>
</font><font face="Symbol">·
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">Because flouconazole is used
quite successfully to threat women’s yeast infections, toe fungus, and
oral thrush in the First World, it produces more than $1 billion in sales
each year. <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Symbol">·
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">Relying on blockbuster drugs
like Lipitor (cholesterol), Zoloft (depression), and Viagra (impotence),
and through a recent merger, Pfizer has become the biggest drug company
in the world and the fifth largest company in the world. On sales of $31
billion, it “earned” $4.9 billion of profit in 1999.<br>
<br>
</font><font face="Symbol">·
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">Pfizer has <b>blocked African
countries’ efforts </b>to get around prohibitively high prices by
developing or importing generic versions of fluconazole. Through its
local subsidiary and trade association, it has gone so far as to join a
lawsuit to block South Africa’s 1997 Medicines Act, which allowed the
compulsory licensing/production of generic drugs or the cheaper
importation (see Patrick Bond's recent article in the Journal of Public
Health Policy for details).<br>
<br>
</font><font face="Symbol">·
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">Pfizer justifies its actions
by claiming that it has “intellectual property rights” to a drug it
created an unbreakable 20-year patent. It justifies its profits based on
alleged research and development costs, most of which are in fact derived
from government research, tax subsidized, and/or oriented towards
“me-too” patents of previously developed products. Pfizer spends three
times as much on marketing and administration as it does on research and
development (see James Love's recent article in the Journal of
International Health for details).<br>
<br>
</font><font face="Symbol">·
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">Pfizer will tell you that it
has recently offered to make fluconazole available for free in South
Africa. <b>While they signed an agreement to provide AIDS drugs, they
have not actually fulfilled it, even though a year has passed since the
signature of the AIDS drugs provision deal. </b>Pfizer only made a public
relations move in response to extreme pressure from activists worldwide
(see the World Health Organization's website for details). <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Symbol">·
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">South African activists, the
Treatment Action Campaign, have launched a Defiance Campaign to import
generic fluconazole from Thailand, threatening to make it available for
free.<br>
<br>
</font><font face="Garamond" size=5><b>To help alleviate this problem,
join other MIT students as we rally for the provision of AIDS drugs on
World AIDS Day, <u>Friday, December 1st</u>. A team of MIT students will
leave from <u>Lobby 7</u> at <u>3:30 p.m.</u> to join a rally with
speakers and a vigil in front of Pfizer headquarters, 620 Memorial Drive
(just past Tang Hall).<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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</font></b>
<BR>
<div>------------------------------------------------------</div>
<div>Sanjay Basu </div>
<div>MIT</div>
<div>450 Memorial Drive </div>
<div>Cambridge, MA 02139 </div>
<div>(617) 225-9394 (H)</div>
<div>(617) 726-5746 (O)</div>
<div>(208) 246-3519 (fax)</div>
<div>(617) 560-2119 (pager)</div>
<br>
<div>
<a href="http://web.mit.edu/sanjayb/www" EUDORA=AUTOURL>http://web.mit.edu/sanjayb/www</a></div>
<div>sanjayb@mit.edu</div>
<br>
for instant contact, e-mail 6175602119@airtouchpaging.com
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