Proud of your country?

Can’t Afford AIDS Drugs? Then DIE on Plastic has a discussion about the latest global program that the US has stymied with its single, powerful vote. The article, US blocks cheap drugs agreement on BBC News provides details, mainly that the US voted against the proposal that would make it much easier for “ poor countries to buy cheap drugs” because “US negotiators say the deal would allow too many drugs patents to be ignored.”

Hmmm….save “30 million people … in Sub-Saharan Africa” or line the pockets of US drug manufacturers with even more money? Actually, it’s not exactly lining their pockets because it’s not like Africa can actually pay for the drugs, so they won’t be bought, so there’s not actually much loss of opportunity cost, but there is a big win on principle: the US has upheld its support of corporate capitalism above humanity. Yay.

It’s weird how billions of US tax dollars seem to hold no sway over our elected leaders, whereas a few millions here and there by corporate donors are enough to purchase what must have been a pretty tough vote to cast. If you examine the US voting record at the UN (where we are often the only vote against many similar programs for cleaning up land mines, the environment, giving rights to Palestinians, etc. — check out Rogue State by William Blum for an excellent overview), we must be quite used to sticking our necks out for our opinions. Too bad they’re the opinions of a tiny minority rather than the wishes of the US citizenry in general.

I think if you asked people if they’d like to do an end-run on patents held by large US corporations to stem the AIDS problem in Africa, most people would say “full speed ahead”. Yet, somehow, our ‘democracy’ often manages to come up with an answer that doesn’t gel with the opinions of the majority.

Seriously, does this sound like a down-side to you?

“The United States said the proposed deal would mean that illnesses that are not infectious, such as diabetes and asthma, could also be treated with cheap, generic drugs. ”

Oh no! That would be terrible! You mean the side effect of sidestepping patents to save 40 million people world-wide would be that a whole bunch of other diseases that may not be deadly (though I’m sure diabetes is more deadly in the Third World) would also be treated outside of the patent system?

That sounds good to me. Good as in morally good. As a poster on Plastic mentions, the US is showing its hypocrisy again:

“Think about it, any responsible government, given the choice between letting millions of its people die or breaking copyright law, has no choice but to break that law and at the same time, can gain influence and credibility by providing free medication to other countries that need it but are unable to reproduce it themselves. … you can damn well bet that’s exactly what the United States would do, if the situation were reversed.”

Why is it that the other 143 nations in the world were able to agree that this is a good thing to do, but the US could not? This is a program to help people who can’t afford the drugs anyway. You’re not losing a market by giving them the drugs for free. In fact, if you have a view longer than the next fiscal quarter, doesn’t keeping people alive and not worrying about dying of AIDS do so many good things in the long run? Even speaking strictly non-humanitarian, there are more people alive, so you have a larger market. You’ve engendered goodwill among those people, so you have good brand recognition. The government and economy of that country is no longer solely occupied with keeping one quarter of its population alive, so they can perhaps stabilize and advance a bit, so now they can afford to import more products. It’s a win-win-win situation, no?