AlertNet Deputy Editor Tim Large is at the 15th International AIDS conference in Bangkok. Here are tidbits from his notebook on the second working day of the world’s biggest AIDS powwow.

Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Disruptions, disruptions…

Attendees at an academic symposium on the science of new antiretroviral therapies are astonished to see prostitutes from around the world suddenly clamber onto the stage, waving “Gilead prefers us HIV+” placards and chanting “Stop the trial now! Stop the trial now!”

The disruption is the work of the Asian Pacific Network of Sex Workers (APNSW) and activists from a group called Act Up. They’re angry at drug maker Gilead, a sponsor of the symposium, for trials of a new preventative AIDS drug known as Tenofovil.

Turns out the company is conducting in vivo trials on sex workers in Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria and Cambodia. All the prostitutes start off HIV-negative. Half get the drug and half get a placebo. By comparing the two groups at the end of the trial, you can see how effective the drug is as a prophylactic.

According to the APNSW and Act Up, the prostitutes are paid just $3 for each monthly visit they make as part of the trials. The protesters say the women get little effective education in the proper use of condoms – and less encouragement to actually use them. Those who do become HIV-positive are then pretty much on their own.

“They have gone to a high-risk, disempowered, disenfranchised, poor group of women to do a trial of their drug without any sensitivity to their needs or how to work with people with AIDS,” says Act Up spokesman Mark Milano. “We’re saying they should stop this trial, rethink it, and open it again in a more ethical fashion.”

**

A couple of hundred activists also crash a talking shop on intellectual property rights and antiretroviral drugs, lugging body bags into the arena and chanting “Break the patents, treat the people!” A handful of right-wing demonstrators in red t-shirts stage a counter-protest, yelling “Capitalism heals, socialism kills!”

A scuffle breaks out when a member of the anti-patents crowd rips down one of the redshirts’ posters. People start chanting “Murderer! Murderer!”

“We need generic drugs, especially in developing countries where we can’t afford drugs made by big drug companies,” says Thai activist Kamon Upakaew, chairman of the Network of People Living with AIDS.

I ask Maria Vigneau, chief of communications on HIV/AIDS at pharmaceutical giant Roche, what she makes of the protest. Roche has pledged not to file patents for any medicines in the least developed countries of the world, as defined by the U.N., although activists say that is not enough.

“I understand that people have concerns over aspects of intellectual property,” she says. “I think the debate in the session focused on the need for new medicines, and intellectual property is really the environment to allow the investment in developing new medicines.”

**

Tell that to John Iverson, a demonstrator from Oakland, California. He’s been HIV-positive for 24 years, nine of them spent on antiretroviral drugs.

“I’m here because I think everyone in the world has a right to AIDS treatment,” he says. “This is a human right, and I’m here because my president, George Bush, is doing everything he can to enhance the profits of the pharmaceutical industry, which in turn harms people’s access to affordable medicine.

“And specifically, we’re talking today about the U.S.-Thai bilateral free trade agreement (negotiations). Under recent agreements with Chile and Singapore, those countries would not be able to produce generic drugs.”

BANGKOK BLOG-Global AIDS conference swings into gear

BANGKOK BLOG-Global AIDS pow-wow opens for business