U.S. Will Give Seed Money for AIDS

The United States will contribute $200 million next year to an international fund to fight AIDS and other infectious diseases, President Bush said Friday.

Joined at the White House by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Bush said the contribution will be seed money in what is intended to be a global program to collect and distribute donations from public and private sources. The money will be used for the prevention and treatment of HIV and AIDS, the White House said.

The amount of the U.S. contribution was immediately criticized as insufficient by AIDS support groups.

“In the face of what will soon be the worst plague in human history, it’s tragic that the richest country in human history is unwilling to contribute its fair share to finance the solution,” said Salih Booker, the executive director of Africa Action, which is involved in the fight against AIDS.

And Jamie Love, director of the Consumer Project on Technology, accused the White House of making more of the contribution than warranted.

“It’s surprising to make a big fanfare of $200 million, after the secretary-general of the United Nations came out and called for $7 billion,” Love said. The Consumer Project on Technology, established by Ralph Nader, helped negotiate a recent agreement to provide generic AIDS drugs to African nations.

Bush announced the contribution in the Rose Garden, telling reporters that the $200 million will be expanded “as we learn where our support can be most effective.”

The president said the fund will:

* Rely on an international partnership drawing on the resources of governments, corporations, foundations, religious groups and other nongovernmental organizations.

* Emphasize prevention, medical training and treatment.

* Concentrate on proven programs.

* Review programs for effectiveness.

But in perhaps the most controversial element of the U.S. effort, Bush noted: “We understand the importance of innovation in creating lifesaving medicines that combat diseases. That’s why we believe the fund must respect intellectual property rights as an incentive for vital research and development.”

This was a reference to the fight in which the Nader group was involved, over whether foreign companies and governments can ignore patent protections and produce generic drugs for sale in impoverished developing countries at a fraction of the price demanded by the international pharmaceutical manufacturers that developed the drugs.

“What we’re concerned about,” said Love, who helped work out the agreement making some generic AIDS drugs available in Africa, “is that they’ll use the fund to stop poor countries from buying the least expensive drugs.”

In addition to combating acquired immune deficiency syndrome, the fund will be used to counter tuberculosis and malaria, the White House said. The three diseases account for 25% of all deaths in the world, it noted. Nearly 70% of the 36 million people believed to be living with human immunodeficiency virus and AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa.

Annan, standing at Bush’s side, said the U.S. contribution “will encourage or energize others to act.” Obasanjo characterized it as “just the beginning” because “we are still far from the $7 billion to $8 billion annually that experts reckon will be needed.”

House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) praised the Bush administration for acknowledging the need, and said in a written statement that “as the wealthiest nation in the world, the United States has the obligation to lead this effort.”

But he proposed that the administration move immediately to provide the money, rather than wait until fiscal 2002 begins Oct. 1.