PHM-Exch> "Pharma Greed Kills!": AIDS Activists Take On Hepatitis C

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Daniela Ikawa <dikawa at escr-net.org>



Source: OSF (
http://www.soros.org/voices/pharma-greed-kills-aids-activists-take-hepatitis-c)




*“Pharma Greed Kills!”: AIDS Activists Take On Hepatitis C** *

August 17, 2012   by Azadeh
Momenghalibaf<http://www.soros.org/people/azadeh-momenghalibaf>
  Public Health
Program<http://www.soros.org/about/programs/public-health-program>

AIDS activists from around the world are staging demonstrations and
demanding affordable treatment for a blood borne virus that has infected
170 million and counting. No, the virus is not HIV but HCV, the virus that
causes hepatitis C. Unlike AIDS, hepatitis C is curable but nonetheless
kills 350,000 people every year. Why? Because the main medicine needed to
treat it (Pegylated Interferon) continues to be protected by patents and
therefore exorbitantly priced by the two pharmaceutical giants that make
it, Roche and Merck.

Hundreds of thousands with HIV—including virtually all those who got the
virus through tainted needles or infected blood products—are also infected
with the hepatitis C virus. And a growing number of people affected by HCV
are pushing for the kind of treatment activism that drove the price of AIDS
drugs from out-of-reach to affordable <http://www.avert.org/generic.htm> in
even the poorest countries. At the International AIDS Conference last
month, activists gathered in Washington, DC, to launch a global call to
lower HCV treatment
prices<http://www.medecinsdumonde.org/Nos-Combats/Campagnes/Washington-Call-for-access-to-HCV-diagnostics-treatment-and-care-for-all>.
Currently, treatment for HCV can reach up to $20,000, a price that most
people in developing countries just can’t afford to pay. In nations as
varied as Kyrgyzstan and Malaysia, activists have also been collecting
signatures as part of the Eurasian Harm Reduction Network (EHRN) campaign
called the Hep C Treatment Waiting List
<http://www.harm-reduction.org/petitions/>,
urging Merck and Roche to drop the cost of treatment so that the thousands,
and possibly millions, living in the developing world who need treatment
can access it.

In one of the most vivid demonstrations that took place in Washington,
activists carried a plate of rotting lamb liver to a dinner symposium
sponsored by Roche, chanting “stop eating our liver!” to point out that the
company’s high prices were destroying livers and costing lives.  Demanding
that the company decrease the cost of treatment dramatically, activists
also called for a minute of silence to honor those lost because of the
companies’ greed, and reminded Roche and Merck that such actions will not
stop until the prices of hepatitis C medicines are dropped. The
demonstration was captured in this great
video<http://drogriporter.hu/en/bigpharmagreed>by the Hungarian Civil
Liberties Union (HCLU).

HCV is only one example of a disease where lifesaving treatments remain out
of reach because companies put patents and profits before people’s right to
health. A growing movement—which includes several organizations supported
by the Open Society Foundations such as Public
Citizen<http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=4955>,
International Treatment Preparedness Coalition
(ITPC)<http://www.itpcglobal.org/>,
EHRN <http://www.harm-reduction.org/>, and Health
Gap<http://www.healthgap.org/trips.htm>—is
fighting back against EU and U.S. efforts to extend patents and enact trade
agreements like the Trans Pacific Partnership
Agreement<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/24/international-aids-conference-protest_n_1699550.html?1343163860#slide=1272521>and
* EU-India FTA<http://www.soros.org/voices/india-and-europe-trading-away-access-medicines>
,* which lead to higher drug prices and severely limit the ability of
countries to provide affordable generics to their populations. As Shona
Schonning from ITPC eloquently states in the HCLU video, “Treatment and
lifesaving drugs are a right, not a privilege.”

For the millions with HCV who can’t afford the price tag, lifesaving
treatment remains a right denied. If the HCV treatment activists have
anything to say about it, that won’t be true for long.
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