Express indignation over the US government's attempts to stop Brazil from meeting its internationally recognized obligations to implement the right to health for all its population. For some time, the United States has been threatening action against Brazilian patent laws, which enable affordable production of HIV and other medications and their free delivery to affected communities. Community activists in Brazil have responded by urging the US government to desist from any such complaint, as well as from threatened actions against Argentina. However, the US has declared its intention to take its complaint before the WTO as of February 1, 2001.
International law regarding patent protections remains riddled with ambiguities.
The issue in this case, however, is not the legal longevity of patents, but the needs of human life. Brazil's generic pharmaceutical industry has been able to provide drugs inexpensively to people in need. Yet cheap therapies pose a threat to the profits of US-based pharmaceutical manufacturers. The law has enabled a number of Brazilian industries to expand, but particularly the generic pharmaceutical industry. Brazil has initiated its own production of anti-retroviral drugs, with a goal of providing free and universal care to as many patients as possible.