Meditation: Trade and Access to Medicines

When talking about a visit to a school in Zimbabwe, Stephen Lewis, the United Nations Secretary General’s Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa spoke of listening to 8-year-old children talk of how they feared death. Lewis observed that in western countries children rarely think of death, but in many African nations, by the age of 8 children have commonly attended several burials and have witnessed neighbors, friends and family members die of HIV/AIDS and other treatable diseases.

According to UNAIDS, last year 40.3 million people in the world were living with HIV. In 2003 President Bush announced a U.S. Global AIDS initiative that would scale up U.S. funding for treatment, care and prevention. Bush remarked specifically on the need for accessible treatment to create a “Lazarus effect,” saying “When one patient is rescued by medicine, as if back from the dead, many others with AIDS seek testing and treatment, because it is the first sign of hope they have ever seen.” Today more and more people are being treated with AIDS drugs in the countries targeted by this U.S. initiative, but still only one in six people who will die in two years without HIV/AIDS treatment have access to the appropriate medicines.

As U.S. debt grows, and members of Congress fight over how to cut the budget, programs to treat people living with HIV/AIDS will inevitably be under-funded. At the same time, the U.S. Trade Representative is aggressively pursuing trade agreements with resource-poor countries that limit countries’ capacity to produce safe, generic versions of the drugs needed to respond to public health crises such as HIV/AIDS.

One such agreement recently concluded was the US-Peru Free Trade Agreement. While it was still under negotiation, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health reminded parties of their human rights obligations – cautioning “a deep concern that the US-Peru trade agreement would water down internationally agreed health standards, leading to higher prices for essential drugs that millions of Peruvians would find unaffordable.” This comment came after the Peruvian Ministry of Health released a study on the potential effects of an eventual US-Peru Free Trade Agreement (FTA) on access to medicines revealing that between 700 and 900 thousand people would be excluded from accessing medicines without an increase in the budget of the Ministry of Health or an increase in household income for the poor.

Because essential medicines for treatable diseases are out of reach for many in resource poor countries, more and more bodies are prepared for burial, and the hope created by the "Lazarus effect" is still unknown. Holy week readings remind us how Mary, Lazarus’ sister, anointed the feet of Jesus with costly perfume – only to be challenged by Judas about such an expensive gesture. Jesus’ response to Judas acknowledges that Mary could have been preparing Jesus for his own burial.

Reflective Action : Think of what it might be like to be an 8-year-old who has lost so many family members and friends that you begin to fear death itself.

Help people around the world celebrate the “Lazarus effect,” and resurrection from a culture of death. Ask your member of congress to vote “no” on trade agreements that block a countries’ ability to produce save, generic versions of essential drugs, especially the US-Peru FTA.

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