Bush Administration’s Demand for Generic AIDS Drug Standards Must Be Implemented Quickly, Editorial Says
The Bush administration's insistence on using brand-name antiretroviral drugs until an international regulatory body is created to ensure that "generic imitators" will not "do more harm than good, ... doesn't sound unreasonable," a Baltimore Sun editorial says. However, the administration must keep its promise of having such a structure in place by the fall to "immediately begi[n] speeding relief" to the millions of people in the developing world in need of HIV/AIDS treatment, the editorial says. Still, the "bickering over drug approvals is contributing to a disheartening delay" in an international movement to improve access to antiretrovirals and is "tainting one of Mr. Bush's most ambitious and widely praised initiatives," the Sun says, adding, "[A]ny further foot-dragging will confirm suspicions that the administration is simply doing the bidding -- as it has so often before -- of the powerful U.S. pharmaceutical industry." The editorial concludes that the opportunity to help people in the developing world "remains almost as great" as when Bush announced the initiative and "[n]othing should be allowed to slow the mission down" (Baltimore Sun, 4/14).
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