Pharma executive proves controversial choice for AIDS leader
pharmafile | October 29, 2003 | News story | |Â Â Â
President George Bush has appointed Randy Tobias, former chief executive of Eli Lilly, to lead US efforts to combat AIDS in the developing world.
Mr Tobias will oversee the five year, $15 billion emergency action plan to combat AIDS and HIV unveiled by the President at the end of May, and will co-ordinate the buying and distributing of 'low-cost' anti-retroviral drugs, the training of doctors and nurses, and patient education.
The new funding was widely welcomed by aid agencies as the most concrete commitment to tackling the pandemic, and has prompted the UK and the EU to make similar spending pledges.
But the appointment like the scheme has not been without its critics. Some aid agencies say the US's unilateral fund undermines the UN's Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which is still short of its own funding targets. Despite billions of extra dollars pledged by the UK, EU and US, the Global Fund has under a quarter of the funds needed for projects in this year and 2004.
Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical industry is still negotiating with governments, the World Trade Organisation and other stakeholders over how poorer countries can gain access to more affordable drugs.
Mr Tobias is currently Chairman Emeritus of Lilly, has held senior positions at telecomms company AT&T and is described by President Bush as a "highly regarded civic leader and philanthropist" in his home state of Indiana.
Nevertheless, some campaigners fear his links to the pharmaceutical industry could present a serious conflict of interest.
"This decision is another troubling sign that the President may not be prepared to fulfil his pledge to take emergency action on AIDS", said Dr Paul Zeitz, Executive Director of the Global AIDS Alliance. "This raises serious questions of conflict of interest and the priorities of the White House. Both the people of Africa and the people of the United States will lose if the President's AIDS initiatives fail to use the lowest-cost, generic medications. Africans will be left with less medicine and more will die".
The US Senate must now approve Mr Tobias' appointment, while Congress is also yet to sign off the President's spending plans for the programme.
Dr Zeitz has called on the Senate to scrutinise the nomination, saying: "Hard questions need to be asked about whether Mr Tobias will continue the Bush administration's policy of blocking access to lowest-cost generic medicines for the poorest nations".
Despite these concerns, new hopes of a breakthrough in the deadlocked WTO talks have emerged. A senior US official has indicated that Washington is no longer insisting that the agreement to allow the importation of cheap, generic copies of drugs should be limited to a list of specified diseases.
Hopes are now rising once again that a consensus can be reached at a landmark WTO meeting in Cancun, Mexico in September.
