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Note: This document is from the archive of the Africa Policy E-Journal, published
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Africa: Health and Human Rights
Africa: Health and Human Rights
Date distributed (ymd): 011007
Document reposted by APIC
Africa Policy Electronic Distribution List: an information
service provided by AFRICA ACTION (incorporating the Africa
Policy Information Center, The Africa Fund, and the American
Committee on Africa). Find more information for action for
Africa at http://www.africapolicy.org
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Region: Continent-Wide
Issue Areas: +economy/development+ +security/peace+ +health+
SUMMARY CONTENTS:
This posting has the closing remarks by AIDS activist Eric Sawyer
at a conference on Health, Law, and Human Rights, stressing the
need "for the legal, medical, public health and activist
communities to join together to pursue a principled fight for the
human right to health." Another posting distributed today contains
excerpts from a statement by UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot
last week, stressing the struggle against AIDS as an issue of human
security
+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Health, Law and Human Rights Conference
Philadelphia, 10/01/01
http://aslme.org/humanrights2001/body.html
American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 765 Commonwealth
Avenue, Suite 1634, Boston, MA 02215; Phone: (617) 262-4990;
Fax: (617) 437-7596; Email: [email protected]
Closing Conference Remarks by Eric Sawyer
Founding Member of ACT UP NY
My name is Eric Sawyer and I have been living with HIV for a very
long time. Twenty years have passed since Feb. 1981, when I
developed shingles, one of my first HIV related symptoms. I am
alive today because I have had access to the latest treatments as
soon as they become available. I am alive today because I fought
to have the US government and US based drug companies respond to
the HIV epidemic in a responsible way. I am alive today because I
decided that I deserved to live, even though I had a fatal
illness. I am alive today because I put my body in the streets
protesting as an AIDS activist. I am alive today because I put my
body into drug company clinic trials to test new drugs for HIV. I
am alive today because I fought for my right to health. More
importantly, I am an international treatment activist today
because I was born with a sense of humanity and the conviction
that every life matters and deserves to be fought for. And I am
mad as hell that almost 10,000 of our brothers and sisters around
the world are dying from AIDS every day - because they lack
access to their Human Right to Health.
I am mad as hell that 10,000 people die every day, because AIDS
drugs cost too much and because governments in the 1st world
value money more than the lives of poor people in the developing
world.
I am mad as hell that 16,000 people get HIV every day because our
world leaders are heartless cowards who can't admit that people
have sex or use drugs.
I am mad as hell that 20 years into this epidemic some people
still think treatment and prevention are separate and the
prevention is more important than treatment.
I am mad as hell that my government - the all-powerful USA - thinks
-- it can tell developing countries that they can not produce
affordable generic drugs.
I am mad as hell that the patent holding drug companies think
they can tell poor nations to buy their over-priced drugs or let
their poor people die.
I am mad as hell that my government can find more than a trillion
dollars for a tax cut, but says it can't afford 3 billion dollars
to treat people with AIDS in the 3rd World.
I am mad as hell that my President can find 15 billion dollars -
literally over night - to save the airline industry from
certain death; and to protect the financial investments of
Airline Stock Holders. Yet he can not find one billion dollars to
save the lives of the current generation of people with AIDS on
the African Continent or to protect the future of the next
generation of people in Africa.
Please, don't take offense at that comment - the events of
September 11th are a huge tragedy. Someone I dated in the early
1990's is among the missing. One of the scheduled speakers from
Sunday's session lost his sister. We all know that almost 6,000
people died on September 11th. But almost 10,000 people will die
today from AIDS. Will the world take notice?
One might ask "Do I have any hope for the future of people with
AIDS around the world? I must say with deep conviction that I do.
For we have made vast progress in the last four or five years.
At the opening Ceremony of the 1996 Vancouver AIDS Conference I
was asked to sound a wake up call to the media which was making
the mistaken pronouncement that the new "AIDS Cocktail was the
cure for AIDS." I was dispatched to instead pronounce that the
cocktail was a continuation of racial and class genocide against
poor people with AIDS because 95% of PWAs could not afford
aspirin.
I stated that drug company greed was killing people with AIDS by
prioritizing profits over human lives.
I stated that governments were killing people with AIDS by
limited international AIDS funding to prevention efforts and
prohibiting expenditures on AIDS treatments.
I stated that stigma and discrimination fuel the spread of the
epidemic in dangerous ways. And that stigma, discrimination and
human rights protections must be built into the global response
to AIDS.
I also delivered the several demands I collected from my
colleagues with AIDS from around the world. Three of these
demands have become the backbone of the global response - these
demands were as follows:
Demand #1: "To the drug companies: People with AIDS say you must
drop your prices. You must consider a system with two tiers of
pricing that allows reasonable profits from the rich, but
provides AIDS drug to poor people in the developing world at
cost. If you do not we will fight to take your patents away from
you."
Demand #2: "To the development agencies, UNAIDS and USAID" people
with AIDS say 'we need a Global initiative to get treatments to
poor people, especially in developing countries.'
Demand #3: "To the governments of the world: People With AIDS say
you must stop lying. Governments lie to us in declaration like
the (then recent) Paris Summit Declaration promising to fight
AIDS more responsibly. Government promises don't save lives, but
governmental programs and funding can." Then I said, "Bill
Clinton if you care about AIDS ask Congress for 3 billion dollars
for global AIDS programs, not 130 million dollars."
History has shown us that much of what people with AIDS demanded
in 1996 has been fought for and obtained. Tiered pricing has been
accepted by drug companies; the Treatment Access movement is
thriving; and Kofi Annan has called for a ten billion dollar AIDS
and Health Fund. But as Judge Kirby and Prudence Mabelle pointed
out in the opening of this conference, the events of September
11th will present new challenges to move us forward towards a
better global response to AIDS. A few of the challenges that have
come to view as a result include:
Challenge #1: How can we re-introduce AIDS, other infectious
diseases and public health into a public discourse that is
totally pre-occupied with war, security and retribution against
terrorism? And how do we do so with out appearing insensitive and
opportunistic.
I believe we can do this if we find a way to expand public
compassion for the pain and suffering of those affected by the
events of September 11th. . -- Expand this compassion to identify
with the pain, suffering and consequences of poor people living
with AIDS who lack access to treatments.
Challenge #2: How can we also then develop the same level of
desire to mobilize public resolve and resources to fight AIDS as
have been mobilized to combat terrorism and mitigate the
consequences of the events of September 11th.
Challenge #3: How do we find a way to encourage the public to
compel our rich governments, institutions and individuals to
quickly find the billions needed to save the lives of those
currently infected with HIV, TB Malaria and other diseases. And
to find those billions with the same speed that 15 billion was
found to ensure the survival of the airline industry.
Challenge #4: How do we find a way to help reawaken mankind's
sense of humanity. - Surely a sympathetic public can be
encouraged to again value human life above property.
Many questions must be asked about how we accomplish these
challenges. Do we institutionalize, though regulations, the
practice of tiered pricing of drugs? Do we fight for a mandated
governmental level of contribution to the health and educational
sectors of all countries? Do we demand cancellation of all poor
country debt? Do we fight for price controls on drugs and health
services? Do we call for mandatory contributions to a public
Research and Development fund though taxes on drug company
profits? Do we tax health insurance premium revenue and health
care service fees to be reinvested in the development of health
care system capacity?
How do we obtain full funding of the UN Fund for Health, TB,
Malaria and AIDS? Do we fight to reform the WTO TRIPS Agreement
to exempt from patent protection the sale of essential medicines
to the poor in the developing world? How can we use Human Rights
Laws to fight for Universal Access to Health? Should we fight for
public funded health care for every person on earth? Should we
fight to have the pharmaceutical industry de-privatized and
placed under government control?
Many may think that all of these things are not obtainable. But
did anyone think that drug companies would agree to tier pricing
in 1996?
I am not suggesting that all of the issues I have raised above
will become the priorities of the AIDS activist, public health
and human rights movement in the next few years. But I am stating
that is time that we recapture our sense of humanity and return
to the fundamental truth that every life matters.
And most of all, I want to close by saying what I believe
Jonathan Mann would be saying if he were here today. That being,
that in the year 2001, it is time for the legal, medical, public
health and activist communities to join together to pursue a
principled fight for the human right to health.
Working independently we have won many battles; - By uniting, I
believe, we can win a universal human right to health.
May God bless us all.
This material is being reposted for wider distribution by
Africa Action (incorporating the Africa Policy Information
Center, The Africa Fund, and the American Committee on Africa).
Africa Action's information services provide accessible
information and analysis in order to promote U.S. and
international policies toward Africa that advance economic,
political and social justice and the full spectrum of human
rights.
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