Man of the World: The Further Endeavors of Bill Clinton by Joe Conason Page A

a child die of AIDS who could have lived if the rest of us had done our part?” Based on his own administration’s decision to support exclusive patents on AIDS medications and to oppose production of cheaper generic alternatives, he might well have been talking about himself.
    Now he was in Nigeria again where, despite his attempt to break down prejudice against people suffering with HIV/AIDS, the virus continued to spread. For both the OAU and the U.N., the chief purpose of the Abuja conference was to formulate a consensus plan for fighting an epidemic that, as Clinton noted in his speech, might kill as many as100 million Africans in the coming decade. By putting together a credible plan with U.N. backing, including major contributions from their own governments, the African leaders hoped that they could attract more support from the West. Specifically, Annan and the OAU leaders wanted to mobilize vast new resources from the developed nations to begin providing antiretroviral drugs to sick Africans.
    Until then the Western consensus had been clear and chilling, if usually left unsaid. Antiretroviral medications or ARVs, the only known treatment for HIV/AIDS, were simply far too costly for most citizens of the developing world to afford. Long struggles over patent protection for the European and American pharmaceutical companies that produced the drugs—with the Clinton administration mostly advocating the narrow interest of those U.S. corporations—had left millions of people to die, even though generic versions might have saved at least some of them. Western governments preferred to promote prevention rather than treatment, as the more feasible and cheaper alternative. It was easier not to talk about the real consequences of that choice.
    But on April 19, just days before the conference opened, a consortium of thirty-nine international pharmaceutical companies abruptly dropped a lawsuit against the government of South Africa over its attempts to purchase and produce generic medications. Under growing international pressure, the drug manufacturers had abandoned their effort to overturn a law signed by Mandela, which empowered the South African health minister to import generic drugs without regard to patent protection. Announcing their decision, the firms claimed that South Africa had promised to recognize their rights and consult them in implementing the law.
    This sudden legal victory shot a powerful tremor of hope through the Abuja conference. Branded medications that cost $10,000 to $15,000 a year per patient in the developed world might soon cost as little as $700 a year in generic form—still too expensive for most patients or governments, but far closer to affordable. With legal obstacles removed, the possibility of effective action and the moral imperative to act were at the top of the conference agenda.
    Annan’s keynote address to the conference urged the creation of a global war chest of up to $10 billion annually, raised from governments, corporations, foundations, and individual donors, to provideAIDS medications in the developing world “at the lowest possible price,” in cooperation with manufacturers. He pledged that if money was forthcoming, as he expected, the U.N. would take the lead in coordinating financial assistance with strategic planning in this proposed “Marshall Plan.”
    Following Annan, Clinton endorsed the secretary-general’s call for funding and action, warning that although Africa was currently the “epicenter” of the disease, other major nations such as “India, China, or even Russia” could take its place in the future if the world failed to act. He had a warning for the three dozen African heads of state who were present, too: Unless they began to establish national systems in their countries to ensure effective use of the global funding, the additional money would accomplish little. “You still need to get enough medicine distributed,” he emphasized, “and educate your