http://www.redflagsdaily.com/allen/2005_nov09.html

The Day Of Reckoning Looms For Antiretroviral Lobbyists

By Red Flags Columnist, Anita Allen

Since my last letter, detailing the call by our opposition political party for my banning, there's
been a bit of a wind of change.

It's true that one radio station heeded the call to ban me. On the other hand, another station not
only has allowed me on to the air waves, but various presenters have engaged me in exchanges - and
even allowed me to take questions from listeners. This is a departure from previous practice, where
I was allowed only to make a statement before being cut off air.

The station that banned me transmits on medium wave, and the one where I am being accorded open
access transmits nationwide, so the coverage area couldn't be better.

The fact that our local Freedom of Expression Institute has taken a principled stance against the
call for my banning, along with 11 others, may have something to do with my sudden access to the
airwaves. It may also have to do with South Africans in general having an innate sense of fair play.
Mostly, I think it is a perverse aspect of human nature to be immediately curious about exactly what
it is people like me are saying that warrants a ban.

Anyway, there's been a sea change on at least one channel at our national broadcaster with listeners
calling and actually expressing the hope that I am listening and will phone in and participate. For
the past two weeks, I have been able to phone in several times. The topic has been one I am
delighted is finally getting an airing: the safety and efficacy of antiretrovirals (ARVs).

The most ardent proponent of this class of chemotherapy drugs is a non-governmental organization
(NGO) called Treatment Action Campaign (TAC). (1) Back in 1999, when President Thabo Mbeki first
expressed concerns about the toxicity of these drugs, they were not being dispensed in the public
health system. TAC brought a court action and the high court ruled that, since the drugs were
licensed, they had to be rolled out by government. This finally commenced on April 1, 2004.

From the start, TAC has been synonymous with ARVs. AIDS covers 30-odd diseases, all with their own
drug therapies, but TAC never toyi-toyis for any of these, just ARVs. The one exception was
Fluconazole (aka Diflucan), which TAC leader Zackie Achmat needed for a persistent fungal infection.
In 2000, he made headlines for illegally smuggling in a generic form of the drug; then, somehow, the
Medicines Control Council issued a licence for their distribution, instead of impounding them and
putting Achmat in jail.

After all, it takes a particular kind of monster to incarcerate an HIV-positive person for getting a
cheap version of a drug he needs to manage what is a chronic fungal infection.

The organization has been a boon to the pharmaceutical industry, mainly through the free advertising
generated by a brown-nosing media that follows TAC antics realizing they bring colorful photo
opportunities. For the first time in the history of drug marketing, millions of people know the
brand names of ARVs without a cent being spent on advertisements or freebie inducements to health
professionals.

TAC likes to project itself as civil society's protector against Big Pharma. Its members argue that
they do not receive funding from pharmaceutical manufacturers, and they carefully screen all donors
to make sure that funding is not sourced from drug companies. On radio this week, I was able to
establish that, in fact, a TAC spokesperson, who had just made the claim, had no idea of the source
of funds from its main support base - about R6 million (US$1m) from the Germany-based Brot fuer der
Welt and R4 million (US$660,000) from Cayman Island-registered Atlantic Philanthropies.

TAC also argues that proof of its nonalignment with Big Pharma is that it constantly lobbies for
price reductions, and no manufacturer would support an organization which does this. Again, a red
herring because what Big Pharma has lost in price reductions, it has more than made up in the volume
being sold.

I never forget Durban 2000 - the 13th International AIDS Conference, when members of TAC and its
affiliate ACT-UP swarmed all over drug company stands, first Boehringer Ingelheim and then Merck,
Sharpe and Dohme (MSK). Activists virtually took over, as personnel stood by doing nothing, while
the exhibit was plastered with posters demanding cheaper ARVs.

MSK Africa representative Jeffrey Sturchio was among those standing by and watching as posters went
up denouncing drug manufacturers for not supplying free drugs. I asked him straight out if his
company funded ACT-UP and he started off by saying he wasn't sure because MSD funded many NGOs. When
I refused to accept the fudge and repeated the question demanding a yes or no, he admitted they had
funded ACT-UP, but said he had no idea by how much.

In fact, drug company sponsorship for activists to attend conferences is a tradition, as
award-winning U.K. health journalist Joan Shenton found out at the 1993 Berlin World AIDS
Conference, when the ACT-UP group's fares were paid by another drug company, Wellcome. On camera,
Shenton asked one of the ACT-UP delegates how much money they had received from Wellcome and the
answer was £60,000. It was Shenton's confirmation that prompted my question to Sturchio.

According to its 2004 annual report, which was given a qualified OK by auditors, TAC spent R6.6
million on advocacy, treatment literacy and conference organization, which is a sizeable saving for
Big Pharma. In fact, the relationship between it and TAC is seamlessly synergistic.

TAC funders might also like to know that little of the about R13 million annual funding goes to
acquiring and distributing ARVs. A mere R476,000 in 2004 and R65,000 in 2003.

In the past few months, TAC's focus has been on drumming up a case for the banning of Matthias Rath,
MD, CEO of the Germany-based Rath Foundation, which has established an office in South Africa. (2)
The foundation promotes a local chapter of the Alliance for Health, Peace and Social Justice, which
participated in recent elections in Germany. In South Africa, it employs well-known dissidents David
Rasnick, a member of our Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel, and Adv Anthony Brink, author of the book
Debating AZT. All of them hold to alternate theories of AIDS cause, therapy and care with a focus on
nutrition, micronutrients and vitamin supplementation and a history of strong opposition to ARV
therapy. According to TAC, Rath Foundation staff have persuaded patients on ARVs to throw them away
and one such patient has now died.

My main focus at present is to determine what is happening to the now about 100,000 people,
including some 10,000 infants and children, who have been enrolled on ARV treatment programs via the
public health system. After months of trying, I finally got a partial answer to my questions from
our Department of Health. The reply was almost incoherent, but it did quote figures from the
province where TAC is most active, the Western Cape. Apparently, at three months, a total of 4.8
percent of patients died. At six months, a total of 7.2 percent died. In 12 months, a total of 12.2
percent died.

That means that the average longevity of a patient on ARVs could be four years. So much for the
"life-prolonging" and "life-saving" descriptive PR of these drugs. As I pointed out on radio this
week, when a member of TAC was the studio guest, this means the organization is engaged in a
purposeful diversion to one alleged death, when its own therapy has killed hundreds. Just give us
the facts - from your treatments, as well as any other, I told him.

The main story here in South Africa is the efficacy and safety of ARVs, which has yet to be
established anywhere in the world. In this country, we have ongoing what is the biggest ARV trial in
history. So, provided we all pull together and keep proper records, it should not take much longer
to generate real data.

* * *

1. www.tac.org.za
2. www.dr-rath-foundation.org.za

I love y'all. The entire conspiracy is right there in front of you and
you are too stupid to see it, instead you gnash your teeth at the only
people trying to do something. SPOILER!!!! The real conspiracy is that
Big Pharma doesn't care AT ALL about Africa. Not one teensy tiny bit.
Do you know how much all of Africa accounts for in terms of Big
Pharma's profits? This is from Edwin Cameron's book so I am sure that
you will disregard it but one percent. One percent: the drug companies
care not one wink for Africa. The "conspiracy" is that the west and its
drug companies which supposedly make drugs to prevent and treat illness
no longer operate for any other reason than to squeeze every last dime
out of their coveted patents. This money they then pump back into the
American lobby machine as fast as possible so that the American
government does everything it can to "combat AIDS" in Africa except the
one thing that would help, breaking the patents and allowing any
country that wants to produce and distribute the meds free of charge or
for a minimal charge. So yeah go ahead,that day of reckoning is coming
for us, keep fighting against a group of people who fight for access to
treatment for the poor. As the say in Gangs of New York, "don't worry
we can always get one half of the poor to kill the other half." The
conspiracy is not HIV, the conspiracy is poverty, and with poverty
comes TB, Malaria, HIV/AIDS, and so many other diseases that rich folks
won't stand to die for. Poor folks on the other hand.... So Alex keep
up the noble and good work I hope that your bosses at Big Pharma and
Madison Ave. pay well, and for everybody else that is reading, let me
leave you with this. Everything is Fine, No One is Dying, This is The
Way Things Are Suppose to Be, HIV/AIDS, TB, Malaria and Poverty are a
Myth. Everything is Fine, Go to Work, Go to Sleep.....