Capitalism can't
solve AIDS crisis.
40 million
people globally are infected with HIV. 25 million live in
Africa (10% of the population) and by 2020, 90 million
Africans could be infected. The UN has warned that current
levels of ‘action’ could see the disease bring the entire
continent to its knees and generations of Africans lost.
Zena Awad
The British government has said it intends to push Aids
vaccine research up the political agenda when it assumes
the presidency of the G8 in July. The G8 have promised to
set up a Global HIV vaccine Enterprise and pledged more
funding. There are estimates that an effective safe
vaccine could be available by the end of the decade - but
available to whom?
These hypocritical leaders are boasting that global
funding for HIV has tripled in the past four years but it
is now just a little over $6 billion – less than Britain
has spent on the war and occupation on Iraq!
The Bush administration has committed $15 billion -
compared to $173 billion spent on the war, enough to fully
fund world wide AIDS programmes for the next 17 years. The
US is also pursuing a religious neo-conservative agenda
which gives priority to faith-based organisations
promoting sexual abstinence over condom use.
US congress woman, Barbara Lee, opposes this policy: “In
an age where five million people are newly infected each
year, and women and girls too often do not have the choice
to abstain, an abstinence-until-marriage programme is not
only irresponsible, it’s inhumane”.
Under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, a nation can
only break drug patents if there is a national emergency
but apparently the current crisis does not count. The head
of Brazil’s AIDS programme, Pedro Chequer, exposed the
role of the WTO: “It’s all a big agreement to keep
developing nations hostage to the multinational industry.”
While the price for the drug itself is now lower, the cost
of foreign imported drugs in countries like India has
increased massively from 50% to 85% of the treatment
programme’s cost. Local pharmaceutical firms are driven
out of business as a result of the patent law. Brazil,
where the number of people with HIV has remained at about
600,000 for several years, has now broken the patent law
and will be making copies of up to five drugs.
HIV/AIDS and the misery and suffering of millions
worldwide have become a market for the capitalist
criminals! The rampant spread of this virus and the
millions it kills world wide are a by-product of this
profit-driven system.
Susannah Price, the BBC UN correspondent, pointed the
finger at those responsible for the epidemic by
emphasising how dramatic is the impact of government
policies on the spread of HIV and Aids in Africa. A recent
UN report concluded that if millions of Africans are still
being infected by 2025, “it will not be because there was
no choice – [but] because collectively there was
insufficient political will to change behaviour at all
levels…”
But there is a collective will, the real collective of
ordinary people – the hundreds of thousands of
demonstrators that have been protesting against the greedy
drugs companies which would rather see millions die and
whole communities devastated than their profits drop!
Let’s show them and the rest of the
world how strong our collective will is by mobilising huge
numbers for the counter-G8 summit and demonstrations. The
G8 are only eight, join the hundreds of thousands and
demonstrate!
Come to the ISR international youth camp
2nd
to 7th July
Travel
to and from Edinburgh & camp including food and transport
to all G8 counter-summit events
£85
unwaged/ low-paid, £105 waged
If you
can’t make the whole week join ISR on the demonstration in
Edinburgh on 2 July
Travel
to and from 2nd of July Make Poverty History demo in
Edinburgh from London
£35
unwaged/low-paid, £55 waged
For
details of transport from your area to the 6 July
demonstration phone 020 8558 7947 or email
anticapitalism@hotmail.co.uk
