A few weeks ago music artists from around the globe gathered in Cape Town, South Africa for the ‘46664’ concert. The concert was named after Nelson Mandela’s prison number. Fronted by Mandela himself, the purpose of the concert was to raise awareness for the Aids epidemic sweeping across Africa.
Recent figures have highlighted that 30 million people in Africa have been affected by HIV/AIDS, and over 17 million people have been killed by AIDS in the world’s poorest countries (more than the casualties from the wars of the last century). There are now over 11 million AIDS orphans, and this figure is estimated to rise to 20 million by the end of the decade. Such realities are stripping Africa’s population and threatening its economy, which is already crippled by poverty, debts and unfair trade policies.
The problem lies with the fact that American drugs companies have developed a treatment program for AIDS, spending enormous resources in research and development under the protection of the patent. Their reasons for doing this are simply financial; they intend to recoup their expenditure by selling the treatment at a massive profit. It costs $10,000 to undergo the treatment program as set out by American drugs companies, however, the average “yearly” wage in South Africa is just $1,000. In the absence of the patent, the treatment could cost as little as $200.
Those in favour of patent laws would argue that the massive prices reflect the enormous investment and risks taken in pharmaceutical research and development (R&D). The example given is India, where an attempt was made to do away with patent-based pharmaceutical R&D. In the absence of the patent, no company was willing to take on the massive financial risk. India eventually backtracked & fell in line with the existing model.
Western states adhere strictly to the Capitalist ideology, which caters for the material value of people, but fails to effectively take into account the moral, humanitarian and spiritual values. Consequently, institutions not based upon the material value are largely tolerated as long as they do not radically interfere with the material aspect. For example, the church is tolerated since it carries very little capability in challenging the authority, or in altering people’s materialistic mindset.
In pure Capitalist philosophy, if you have no money for food you starve, if you have no money for medicine you die, and if you have not money for cloths you go naked. Such realities are currently realised in much of the developing world, whilst in western nations there are measures to ensure people survive - in order to keep western nations strong and powerful over other nations. Even then, it is clear that many western nations are edging towards reducing public expenditure on social issues such as pensions or providing a free national health service. The ever-greater rush towards privatisation in all such areas is driven by the previously mentioned Capitalist philosophy.
Africa is dying of Capitalism, not AIDS
What a surprise capitalism and the capitalist nations who make token gestures to reduce world debt and rid the world of aids are the very reason for aids spreading and causing deaths world wide. They cannot allow even the third world countries to produce medicine that will allow people to survive this deadly disease because of the fact that the westren capitalists claim they have the patent over such medicines and the capitalists will lose $'s is that pathetic or what!