AIDS medicine rally at Abbott Labs in Worcester

(Report from last year's rally at Indymedia, with video. Text from this year's announcement follows.)

Rally in Worcester, MA to Make Life-Saving Medications Available and
Affordable in Thailand Now!

A few weeks ago, we witnessed what is perhaps the most blatantly harmful measure Abbott has taken yet. The government of Thailand, in response to the prohibitively high price of Kaletra in their country, issued a compulsory license to produce generic versions of Abbott's life-saving AIDS drug Kaletra/Aluvia. This action was entirely legal within World Trade Organization rules and intellectual property rights law. In retaliation, Abbott decided to pull its registration for Kaletra and six other drugs, refusing to register its drugs in Thailand in the future. In an effort to score points for the profit-making power of global pharmaceutical companies, Abbott is mortgaging the health of people in Thailand. The consequences, generally and in particular for people living with AIDS, will be dire.

This action by Abbott is unprecedented by a pharmaceutical company and a comprehensive and intensive global campaign is needed to ensure that this never happens again and to register our disgust and condemnation for their precedence of profit over people.

On April 26th, there will be an international day of action in solidarity with Thai activists before the April 27th Abbott shareholder's meeting in Chicago. This is a great opportunity to let influential people within Abbott—members of the Board of Directors—know that their actions are not acceptable and pressure will continue until they change their course of action. (For more information check out fightglobalaids.org, or abbottsgreed.com).

With 40 million people infected world-wide, and 14,000 newly infected
every day, HIV/AIDS is the worst epidemic in human history:

• Over 8,000 people still die from AIDS every day

• There are over 500,000 people in Thailand living with AIDS who are in desperate need of treatment.
• In Thailand people make an average of $2 a day
• Due to activist pressure and generic competition, Abbott last week lowered their price from $2,200/patient/year to $1,000/pppy. However, Abbott has yet to seek renewal of the registration process for heat stable Aluvia in Thailand nor for the other 6 medicines it withdrew.

We demand

• Abbott to immediately re-register Kaletra/Aluvia, as well as the 7 other medications they recently pulled from the market in Thailand.

• Abbott to stop pursuing patents for its life-saving medications in developing countries and grant voluntary licenses for production of generic versions of medicines at an affordable price.

Thousands of lives can be saved if Abbott acts immediately. We call on Abbott Laboratories and its shareholders to meet these basic demands to ensure that their medications do what they are intended to do: save people’s lives.

What you can do

Come to WORCESTER, MA: At 1:00 PM on APRIL 26th local activists will rally outside ABBOTT LABROTORIES (located on Shrewsbury St near UMASS Medical Center and the Beechwood Hotel) to make our demands crystal clear and let Abbott know that their greed is killing the sick and the poor and that we will not stand by and watch.

Contact Mehgan Gallagher at Clark University SGAC (mehgan@fightglobalaids.org) for more information.