The Africa AIDS Project is a forum for discussing the global AIDS crisis at the dawn of 21st century. As a Boston-based initiative, the forum hopes to help activists respond effectively to the complex and interrelated issues surrounding AIDS in the Third World and at home.

Issues such as the following figure prominently:

• Political leadership in Africa, Asia, and at home
  
  
• The debt crisis and its effect on public health systems in South countries
  
  
• The role of US pharmaceutical corporations, the WTO, TRIPS, intellectual property rights, generics, parallel importing, compulsory licensing

Hopefully the forum will serve to focus activists on the myriad issues, sense their connectedness, and build and renew a broad-based coalition to deal with the epidemic.

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The S26 Solidarity Day of Action brought these issues into focus by targeting Pfizer pharmaceuticals and projecting debt relief as a way to fund public health programs which serve as the primary means of combatting the AIDS epidemic.

On World AIDS Day, December 1, the Project hit Pfizer again, in the ongoing campaign against pharmaceutical price gouging at the expense of human life.

By spring, events on the international front were unfolding quickly, with pharmaceutical corporations flexing their muscles against Third World countries, either through the courts of law, or through their proxy, the US government and trade sanctions. On March 5th, a Global Day of Action was called by the Treatment Action Campaign of South Africa.

On June 23, activist organizations from around the country and around the world joined for a massive rally on DOLLARS, DEBT, and DRUGS. Click here to see photos of the march and rally and also visit http://www.stopglobalaidsnow.org for continuing activist struggle at the global level on the worldwide AIDS crisis.

Come stop the corporate greed that kills on the Global Day of Action against multinational pharmaceutical profiteers of human suffering. Called by the Treatment Action Campaign of South Africa, folks of all backgrounds will rally in defense of South Africa's attempt to bring drugs to its poorest citizens and Brazil's famously successful AIDS program. Both now stand threatened by the big drug monopolies and US trade actions. This time, it truly is a matter of people before profits, and above all, human life.

• In South Africa, subsidiaries of US and European mega-drug companies have taken the South African government to court over its commitment to purchase cheaper generic and/or brand name medicines for millions living with HIV/AIDS. Originally filed in 1998 and supported by Clinton-Gore threats of trade sanctions until late 1999, the law suit is scheduled for trial in Pretoria March 5-12.
  
  
• In late 2000, the world largest and most profitable pharmaceutical company threatened a lawsuit against an Indian generic manufacturer, CIPLA, which was supplying cheaper medicines in Ghana. On Feb. 8 this year, pharmaceutical representatives said they would protect their patent rights against CIPLA's new plan to sell generic AIDS anti-virals to poor governments at a huge discount.
  
  
• This February, the U.S. lodged a complaint against the Brazil at the World Trade Organization over its production of generic AIDS drugs. In what the New York Times calls a model solution to the AIDS crisis, Brazil has provided free AIDS drugs to over 60,000 citizens, and cut its death toll by over half since 1996. Now Brazil's program is endangered by the strong-armed tactics of big Pharma acting through their proxy, the US government.

The AIDS epidemic is the modern plague, and its impact will lay waste to the continent of Africa, wiping out a whole generation of working men and women, and leaving millions of orphans. However, this pandemic is treatable. The same medicines that has kept tens of thousands alive in this country, is out of reach for the world's poor, now making up over 95% of total AIDS cases.

Because of their monopoly patents, drug companies make mega-profits selling AIDS medicines at huge mark-ups - as much as 4500%. For example, the Indian manufacturer CIPLA has just offered anti-viral triple therapy costing $10,000 per year in the U.S. for $600 to poor African countries and for $350 to Medecins Sans Frontier.

The pharmaceutical giants, however, are working hard to keep their monopoly grip on the market by preventing generic competitors and desperate countries from providing cheaper alternatives. Sometimes, the industry acts directly on its own behalf by filing lawsuits and/or threatening court action. Othertimes, it works behind the scene at the White House, in the Congress, with the U.S. Trade Representative, or at international agencies including the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, the World Health Organization, and UNAIDS.

Activists around the world are protesting drug profiteering and death by monopoly pricing. Even in our rich country, seniors fight back at price gouging by taking buses to Canada where drug prices are far cheaper. Joining them is a growing chorus of journalists, economists, students, religious figures, care givers, international charities, and nobel prize winning doctors, who cannot deny the simple truth - people are dying of AIDS because of corporate greed.

On March 5, a global day of action, timed to coincide with the South African court case and in support of the Brazilian AIDS program, will be held marking a new stage in the growing international solidarity movement. Called by the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa, solidarity demonstrations and rallies will be held around the world. In the US, we have a special responsibility to fight the pharmaceutical companies on their home ground, and reaffirm our moral commitment to human values. In this case, it truly is a matter of people before profits.