Until last year, the dominant perspective was simply to ignore this fact, silently writing off the deaths, while pharmaceutical companies raked in profits from sales in the developed worlds and the U.S. led an aggressive fight for ever-expanded protection for the companies' patent rights. Now the momentum to challenge this dismissal is growing rapidly, building on the emphasis on the right to treatment as well as prevention at the international conference on AIDS in Durban and the African Development Forum in Addis Ababa last year.
Patients are educable.
Drug companies are vincible. If we had the political will, there is no question that we have the money. Yet the Bush administration and drug companies are responding by escalating the attacks against efforts to make treatment accessible in South Africa, Brazil and other countries, even while denying that their actions will have that effect. Executive Director Salih Booker has endorsed the letter on behalf of APIC, the Africa Fund and the American Committee on Africa. Check the Health Gap website for updates on signatories.