GORE'S PATENTED MONEY MOVES
Why is Vice President Al Gore leading the Clinton Administration's efforts to prevent Third World countries like South Africa from producing or buying affordable generic versions of critically needed AIDS drugs? The answer: there's a presidential campaign on, and literally millions of dollars in hard and soft money contributions to be had by serving the interests of the U.S. and European pharmaceutical industry.
Right now, the epicenter of the AIDS crisis is in the Third World, where most people cannot afford the sophisticated drugs that have proven helpful in slowing the progress of the disease. South African officials estimate, for example, that 20 percent of pregnant women there are HIV-positive, and a total of 3.2 million out of 40 million people are infected. In response, the country passed a law in 1997 allowing the licensing of domestic production of generic versions of AIDS drugs as well as the purchasing of cheaper versions on the world market. Many other countries are considering similar steps.
But the pharmaceutical industry is worried that if Third World countries go ahead with these plans, their ability to charge vastly inflated prices back home in the U.S. may be undercut. While AZT, for example, can be purchased on the world market for 42 cents for 300 mg, it retails in the U.S. for nearly $6 a pill.
In response, the Clinton Administration, taking its lead from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and companies like Bristol-Myers Squibb, Glaxo-Wellcome, and Pfizer, which make the most widely used AIDS drugs, has charged South Africa with violating the World Trade Organization's rules regarding patents and intellectual property. Despite the fact that the WTO explicitly allows members to take such steps in the face of a national emergency or for public non-commercial use, the U.S. has placed South Africa on a "watch" list as a free-trade violator and denied it special tariff breaks on its exports. As co-chair with South African Deputy President Thabo Mbeki of the main U.S.-South Africa trade commission, Vice President Gore has been at the forefront of this push, making the issue of "pharmaceutical patents in particular a central focus of his discussions with Deputy President Mbeki," according to a recent State Department report.
At first glance, Gore's assiduous efforts seem counter-intuitive, since campaign contributions from the pharmaceutical lobby have tilted mostly to Republicans, especially since President Clinton's ill-fated effort at health care reform. But Gore, who has boasted of his goal to raise a record-breaking $55 million in 1999 for his presidential campaign, is clearly building on a long-standing foundation and series of relationships. And he has good reason to expect that the flow of pharmaceutical dollars will increase in his direction in the coming months.
Before he ascended to the Vice Presidency, from 1983 to 1990 Congressman and Senator Al Gore raised at least $18,650 in PAC contributions from pharmaceuticals, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The Clinton-Gore campaigns of 1992 and 1996 brought in $582,945 from Squibb, Glaxo-Wellcome, Pfizer and the PhRMA, including individual hard and soft money contributions to the Democratic party committees. Big drug companies also gave or lent another $250,000 to pay for Clinton-Gore's 1993 Inauguration. In 1997-98, Gore's "Leadership 98" PAC, the staging ground for his 2000 campaign, raised another $51,000 from pharmaceutical interests, and the four groups cited above gave another $276,850 in soft and hard money to Democratic party committees.
The Gore campaign is also well-positioned to reap a bumper crop of pharmaceutical cash. Anthony Podesta, a close friend and top advisor to Gore, is one of the PhRMA's chief lobbyists. His firm was paid $160,000 by PhRMA to lobby on patent issues, among other matters, between January 1997 and June 1998. He was also retained by Genentech, a major biotech firm with an intense interest in protecting its patents, at the tune of $260,000 for the same period. (Genentech supplied $229,225 in soft and hard money contributions to Clinton-Gore and Democratic party committees between 1991 and 1998.) Former congressman Tom Downey, Gore's "First Friend" since their days together on the Hill, is a lobbyist for Merck. Peter Knight, Gore's head fundraiser, made $120,000 lobbying for Schering-Plough, another deep-pocketed drug company, in the first half of 1998. And Gore's chief domestic policy adviser, David Beier, was previously the top in-house lobbyist for Genentech.
These people know who to dial for dollars.
One last sign that the pharmaceutical lobby is warming to Gore: $11,000 in contributions to Gore 2000 from PhRMA, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Genentech and Glaxo-Wellcome lobbyists in the first three months of 1999, including a thousand-dollar check from Glaxo-Wellcome's Director of Government Relations on March 31. Most of this money rolled in after consumer and AIDS activists started putting pressure on Gore's office to change his South Africa policy. Instead, at the end of April, he ordered a special full review of South Africa's trade policies, further ratcheting up the pressure on Pretoria to abandon its efforts to bring affordable AIDS drugs to its people.
