By IPS Correspondents
BANGKOK, Jul 13 2004 (IPS)

Freedom of expression is being tested at the 15th International AIDS Conference here, where NGOs and activists have been busy making pharmaceutical companies the object of their noisy, colourful protests this week.

Eight giant pharmaceutical companies loom large in the exhibition hall of the non-government and non-commercial booths of the IMPACT Arena convention centre in the Thai capital. But while their booths attract attention and constant queues of delegates collecting giveaways, they are also experiencing daily demonstrations against them.

Officials of some pharmaceutical companies at the conference admit to being a bit afraid every time a chanting, parading militant group passes by with banners and clenched fists.

But according to Reeta Roy, divisional vice president for global policy of Abbott Laboratories, this has been the case since activism became part of conferences addressing HIV/AIDS.

”We’ve been here and we’ve been seeing them starting in the United States,” she in an interview, referring to the first International AIDS Conference in the U.S. city of Atlanta, in 1985. “I think conferences like this are held basically because we all have to tell our stories, and we all have to listen,” said Roy.

More than 17,000 people, ranging from scientists and doctors, activists, politicians, including some living with HIV/AIDS are attending the Jul. 11-16 conference, organised by the Stockholm- based International AIDS Society and the Thai Ministry of Public Health.

”Let everyone be heard at this conference,” he said. ”We need the acrimonious debates, we need the protests, the political incorrectness and we need the unpleasant facts to triumph over opinion.”

Occupying half the exhibition hall with Abbott are seven other drug companies, including Glaxo Smith Kline whose staff was conspicuously absent when the two-storey booth was surrounded by a group chanting “Medication for every Nation!” at noon Monday.

Spokespersons interviewed by IPS evaded queries about how much they contributed as sponsors of the conference, saying what was more important to them is to show their products and programs.

A copy of the conference programme describes these multinational firms as “preferred sponsors”.

Craig Mcclure of IAS, who heads the team of organisers, explained, ”We need people to help us finance the conference, and they are the ones who have the money, obviously.”

”But we don’t invite them in here just for their money or for them to be able to market their products, but for them to talk about the philanthropic side of their work,” he explained, adding that the drug firms also funded some of the satellite forums.

Konji Sebati, medical director of corporate affairs for Pfizer, said drug firms do not mean to display how much power they have, ”but to be with competitors and know what they’re doing”.

Like NGOs and institutions, she said drug firms also network and even merge common interests in diagnostics and pharmaceutical products addressing HIV/AIDS.

But to critics, the high-profile presence of pharmaceutical firms is a reminder of the things that need to be done in ensuring access to drugs.

Lotha Abemo, who keeps watch at the booth of Indian people living with HIV/AIDS said drug firms have a long way to go in bringing down the costs of antiretroviral drugs (ARVs).

ARVs are substances used to kill or inhibit the multiplication of retroviruses such as HIV.

”The activists are right – we have been talking about access and affordability but this is not happening,” he said.

Citing his country’s generic drugs programme that has helped many poor patients, Abemo said that this can be done.

Beginning in 1997, India has been manufacturing its own generic drugs for people living with HIV/AIDS, although this is now under threat from free trade provisions in world trade rules. The Indian government also started giving free drugs to six states officially classified as having high HIV prevalence since April this year.

A physician from the Philippines who works with AIDS patients said what India has done has to be duplicated by countries with similar conditions. The Philippines, which is one of the countries with a reported low and slow transmission of the virus, has started a similar initiative.

Dr Rossana Ditangco of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine in Manila said a group of patients organised themselves and coordinated with doctors so that they can buy the medicines that the government cannot afford for them.

They approached drug companies that have ARVs, she said. The collaboration has so far continued up to this time, except that some companies have pulled out because of the low demand for their products.

Ditangco said all stakeholders expect drug firms to lower their costs given the public health needs involved in managing HIV/ AIDS epidemics in the different countries. This is the only solution, but, she said, “I don’t see that in the horizon.”

Excerpt: