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In this issue:
-Drug industry shaken up by offer of cut-price AIDS
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Here is a more complete report on the cheap AIDS cocktails.
Got it from CNN. NEW YORK (CNNfn) - A generic drugmaker based in Bombay, India, has offered to provide a cut-price version of the life-saving AIDS cocktail in Africa, a move that pharmaceutical analysts say could lead to a shake-up in the drug industry's stance on protecting its patents in the developing world. The Indian company, Cipla Ltd., offered this week to sell the drugs to Doctors Without Borders, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning medical relief agency, for $350 a year per patient in Africa, where about 25 million people are infected with the HIV virus and drug prices are out of reach for most patients. Under the proposal, the aid group would provide the drugs for free. Other government aid programs working in Africa could get the drugs for as low as $600 per patient, as long as they also offer the medicines for free, Cipla said. That's compared with an annual price of about $10,000 to $15,000 per patient in the United States and Europe. "The immediate challenge is to convert this generic price offer into action," Doctors Without Borders, which has vigorously campaigned for lower prices for AIDS drugs, said in a statement. "An international meeting should immediately convene developing countries, UN agencies, drug manufacturers and funders to determine the best strategy for implementation." But the Indian company's offer . which AIDS experts say still requires a lot of study before going forward . could run afoul of pharmaceutical companies' intellectual property patents and World Trade Organization regulations, and it's unclear what the drugmakers' response will be. AIDS drugs are still relatively new, meaning that they will be patent protected for years. Analysts say Western pharmaceutical firms reap little profit on AIDS treatments in sub-Saharan Africa, but the companies have taken steps to protect their patents from Third World drugmakers that want to produce cheaper, generic versions of the medicines. Cipla says it can produce the drugs cheaper because production and ingredient costs are lower in the developing world. The company says it will only approach the break-even point with its offer, and will not profit from it. Indian drug firms are allowed by local laws to make drugs that are patent-protected elsewhere in the world, as long as they use a manufacturing process that differs from the original patented process. British-based GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GLX: Research, Estimates), Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMY: Research, Estimates), based in New York, and Boehringer Ingelheim of Germany hold the patents on the three drugs that make up Cipla's copycat version of the AIDS cocktail. The multinational companies already have agreed to participate in a United Nations-brokered program to supply AIDS drugs for about $1,000 per patient in Africa. Merck & Co Inc. (MRK: Research, Estimates) and Roche Holding AG, a unit of F. Hoffmann-LaRoche of Switzerland, also agreed to slash prices under the UN initiative. Drug industry officials say they are willing to look at Cipla's offer, but that they think affordability of AIDS drugs is not the only question. African nations often have poor medical facilities and little in the way of AIDS education to prevent the spread of the disease, they argue, saying it is not enough to provide cheap drugs. They also question whether generic drug companies like Cipla have the resources to cover the demand for the drugs in Africa. "We welcome efforts to try to increase access to HIV/AIDS drugs in the developing world -- when those programs are sustainable," said Mary Anne Rhyne, spokeswoman for GlaxoSmithKline in Research Triangle Park, N.C. "The question here with this offer, is whether that is indeed a sustainable proposal." "We will have to consider it as it goes, and see what happens," she said of the Cipla offer. Here is a continent that is devastated by AIDS, and we do have the medicines to perhaps do something about it, but obviously the people in Africa cannot pay for medicines The situation presents a dilemma for the pharmaceutical companies, notes Ajay Bansal, an analyst at Mehta Partners in New York, an investment firm that focuses on the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. On the one hand, he said, the companies want to protect their patents, but on the other, the companies don't derive much profit from AIDS drugs in Africa anyway. Even if the drug companies manufacture the medicines at the lowest possible price, they are dealing with a situation in which millions of victims in poor nations still cannot afford their products, he said. "It does provide a lot of inner food for thought. Here is a continent that is devastated by AIDS, and we do have the medicines to perhaps do something about it, but obviously the people in Africa cannot pay for medicines," he said. "It brings the issue to the fore as to what should be our response." Another industry analyst, who declined to be identified, predicted that Western pharmaceutical companies will be persuaded to go along with the generic plan, saying that large drugmakers stand to gain little by suing firms such as Cipla for patent infringement and that the political and social costs of such a legal fight would be too high. "It would be a very sensitive issue politically," the analyst said. "My sense is that it [allowing the generic drugmakers to go forward] will probably be the best way to give treatment to these people."
The debate over AIDS drugs prices isn't limited to Africa.
Brazil, which already makes copycat versions of AIDS drugs,
has said it would begin producing two more patented AIDS
therapies by June if the prices of the medicines are not
lowered.
Three couples, an elderly couple, a middle-aged couple and a young newlywed couple wanted to join a church. The pastor said, "We have special requirements for new parishioners. You must abstain from having sex for two weeks." The couples agreed and came back at the end of two weeks. The pastor went to the elderly couple and asked, "Were you able to abstain from sex for the two weeks?" The old man replied, "No problem at all, Pastor." "Congratulations! Welcome to the church!" said the pastor. The pastor went to the middle-aged couple and asked, "Well, were you able to abstain from sex for the two weeks?" The man replied, "The first week was not too bad. The second week I had to sleep on the couch for a couple of nights but, yes, we made it." "Congratulations! Welcome to the church!" said the pastor. The pastor then went to the newlywed couple and asked, "Well, were you able to abstain from sex for two weeks?" "No Pastor, we were not able to go without sex for the two weeks," the young man replied sadly. "What happened?" inquired the pastor. "My wife was reaching for a can of paint on the top shelf and dropped it. When she bent over to pick it up, I was overcome with lust and took advantage of her right there."
"You understand, of course, this means you will not be welcome in our
church," stated the pastor. "We know," said the young man, "We're not
welcome at Home Depot anymore either."
thank you all for greeting me into this email club...you have all been so nice...i live north of boston and i'm a student majoring in education...like to meet guys for fun...i'm bi..love sex from men...have a good one... ed:O) Ben Boxer notes: Europe and the British Isles are now light-years ahead of the US in our common cause, with little likelihood of American attitudes catching up in the foreseeable future. That may not, however, be an accurate prediction. Many factors contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union despite their not being apparent until the actual event transpired. Unseen forces are doubtless at work in behalf of our status of equality as well. I am always on the lookout for indicators of same. The article below casts such a beacon of hope on our situation. The adamant of homophobia in the British military is crumbling despite the familiar conventions of only a few months ago. Another indicator I ran across recently was in an Advocate interview with James Hormel in a discussion of his appointment as U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg in the last months of the Clinton Administration. Jesse Helms and his partisan thugs in the American Congress had argued against the appointment on the basis of silverfox Hormel's open homosexuality and his partner relationship of eight years with a 38-year-old foxhunter being an offense to the mostly Roman Catholic citizenry of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Bill Clinton outfoxed his venal Republican opponents by slipping Hormel into the slot by Executive Order during a Congressional recess. Hormel noted that during his brief tenure as a highly qualified ambassador, the only objection voiced in the Luxembourg press was a letter-to-the-editor denouncing his appointment as a disgrace -- a letter written by an American. The many letters written in response to it, and subsequently published in the newspaper, were all from citizens of the country, universally decrying the American critic's homophobic remarks. "America would not be welcome in the European Union," stated one, "for such discriminatory attitudes which violate the basic human rights of homosexuals." Yes, gents, there is hope beyond the blue horizon, and those list members who fail to see the importance of domestic and international politics to other members here would do well to wonder what there is to talk about after loneliness is assuaged by a love relationship and you get out of bed together -- only the menu for breakfast, or what's going on in the world?
Headline:
Text: "The senior guy who was there said, `That's probably because he is one,' " recalled Petty Officer Nunn, 45, who in 1992 was discharged from the navy for being gay, but who re- enlisted last year after the military lifted its ban on gays. "I didn't mind - I'm not at all P.C. - but the guy was mortified. He spent the next month apologizing." For many of the submariners stationed at his base in Cornwall, near Plymouth, Petty Officer Nunn is the first gay person they have ever knowingly met, and certainly the first in a navy uniform. But what is perhaps most surprising about his presence here is how little disruption it has caused, even among the aggressively heterosexual men he serves with. "When you're locked in a tin for months and months at a time, you have to really get along, and it's easy to think gays would disrupt that," said Chief Petty Officer Andrew Reid, a friend of Petty Officer Nunn's. "We thought Bob would be a catalyst for trouble and discord. But since I met Bob, my whole outlook's changed. He's just a bloke like the rest of us." It would be hard to overstate how surprising such a response has been in the British military, whose rationale until last year was much the same as that of the uneasy American "don't ask, don't tell" policy adopted under President Bill Clinton. The existence of openly gay personnel in the ranks, the argument went, would weaken morale and foment division by leading to gay cliques and provoking antigay prejudice and violence from heterosexuals. "Homosexual behavior can cause offense, polarize relationships, induce ill discipline and, as a consequence, damage morale and unit effectiveness," the British Defense Ministry said then in its guidelines on the subject. But contrary to most expectations, Petty Officer Nunn's experience seems to be the rule rather than the exception in Britain's newly inclusive military. Even the Defense Ministry, which fought hard to keep gays out, has acknowledged an unexpectedly smooth transition. In a report last fall, it said there had been "widespread acceptance of the new policy" and "no reported difficulties of note concerning homophobic behavior" among service personnel.
"Before the lifting of the ban, many senior
officials predicted that military performance
would suffer," said Aaron Belkin, director of the
Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the
Military at the University of California, Santa
Barbara, which recently published a report about
the British experience. "But we found that there
has been no problem in terms of morale or
discipline or recruitment."
southern_son69@hotmail.com wrote:
Boston Bill says:
Ben Boxer says: End of silverfoxesclub-digest V1 #137
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