Trade agreements 'bad medicine' for AIDS, says AIDS Healthcare Foundation

AIDS advocates from AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the nation's largest provider of HIV/AIDS medical care serving thousands of patients in the U.S., Africa, Central America and Asia, today hailed Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) for his release of a new report detailing how the pending Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and other trade agreements like NAFTA derail access to affordable generic medications in Latin and Central America and other developing world countries, including access to life-saving anti-retroviral therapies (ARVs) for HIV/AIDS treatment.

"As a provider of medical care and anti-retroviral AIDS treatment in Mexico, we are keenly aware of the life-depriving consequences of trade pacts like NAFTA," said Michael Weinstein, President of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which operates three HIV clinics in Honduras and one in Mexico that offer free AIDS care and generic antiretroviral medications. "It would be a tragedy if CAFTA deprives the rapidly-growing population of HIV patients throughout Central America access to life-saving ARVs. For patients currently on treatment in Central America, CAFTA will mean a fifteen-fold increase in the cost of their medications. We believe that these trade agreements are bad medicine for people with AIDS."

The report was prepared for Rep. Waxman by the minority staff of the Committee on Government Reform. According to a press release from Waxman's office, the report, " ... describes how CAFTA and six other trade agreements signed or under negotiation by the Bush Administration compromise the principles adopted in the 2001 Doha Declaration, an international agreement that trade accords should not interfere with public health and access to medicines."