The agreement on intellectual property, known by its acronym TRIPS, which was signed along with 12 other agreements during the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO), is unjust because it gives a monopoly to the bearer of knowledge about essential products such as food and medicine. Such is the case of the treatment for AIDS. Brazil started applying TRIPS from the first year of the signing, which prevented our country from producing generic drugs and made it dependent on generics from India. Beginning in 2005 India cannot produce these medicines any longer. As a result, the costs for our country to treat AIDS will go from R$ 700  per year to R$ 3.5 billion per year, which can be the end of  Brazil as a model for the treatment for the illness.

WTO Agreement threatens treatment of AIDS in Brazil

*  Evanize Sydow

 Professor Cicero Gontijo from the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, speaking on the significance of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement during the symposium on “Under the Sign of the Bios: Technology, Ethics, Politics, and Society” in September 2004 in Rio de Janeiro, brought to light a serious situation: the treatment of AIDS in Brazil, which is a world-wide model, is threatened beginning in 2005.

 The TRIPS agreement, signed along with 12 other agreements during the creation of the WTO in 1994, refers to the right of intellectual property. It gives a series of powers to the large corporations that hold control of patents and submits many countries to technological dependence. The agreement was a condition imposed by countries like the United States following the WTO negotiations, which aims to regulate the trade activities of the world.

 For more than eight years, Brazil was opposed to discussing intellectual property in the WTO but was pressured in the bilateral negotiations, comments Cícero Gontijo. The country gave in and signed the agreement. “At the time, during the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, there was a strong neoliberal movement. Besides accepting TRIPS, Brazil passed a new law that was worse and gave even more concessions than this agreement”, the professor adds.

 Gontijo explains that TRIPS is unjust because it gives a monopoly to the bearer of knowledge of essential products such as food and medicines. Such is the case for the treatment for AIDS. The developing countries that signed the TRIPS agreement have a period of 10 years to apply it. This is what India and Thailand did, and they went ahead and developed medical products at low prices. Brazil, on the other hand, accepted the application of TRIPS from the first year that it was signed, which prevented it from producing generic products and made it dependent on generics from India. Beginning in 2005, India will also not be able to produce these medicines, and Brazil’s costs for AIDS treatment will go from R$ 700  per year to R$ 3.5 billion. “This can be the end of Brazil as a model for AIDS treatment,” Gontijo concluded.

 The professor emphasized that the subject of intellectual property is included in negotiations all over the world. “Brazil is negotiating intellectual property at the same time with the European Union, in the FTAA, in the World Organization on Intellectual Property, in the WTO, and within the Mercosul.” A year ago, however, the Brazilian government began opposing negotiations on intellectual property in the FTAA. “And it must do the same thing in relation to the European Union, because we are in a situation where every time we negotiate, we have to give up more.”

* Evanize Sydow is a journalist with the Social Network for Justice and Human Rights