[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 54 (Thursday, May 4, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3471-S3472]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        AIDS AS A SECURITY ISSUE

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise today to express my deep 
disappointment in the failure of the conferees to the African Growth 
and Opportunity Act to accept the Feinstein-Feingold amendment 
regarding HIV/AIDS drugs in Africa. When the Senate was debating that 
legislation last year, Senator Feinstein and I offered our amendment, 
which was accepted by the bill's managers, Senators Roth and Moynihan, 
to address a critically important issue--an issue relating to Africa's 
devastating AIDS crisis; an issue that has cast a dark shadow on U.S.-
African relations in the past.
  Our amendment was simple. It prohibited the United States Government

[[Page S3472]]

or any agent of the United States Government from pressuring African 
countries to revoke or change laws aimed at increasing access to HIV/
AIDS drugs, so long as the laws in question adhere to existing 
international regulations governing trade. Quite simply, our amendment 
told the executive branch to stop twisting arms of African countries 
that are using legal means to improve access to HIV/AIDS 
pharmaceuticals for their people.
  The Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property 
Rights, or TRIPS, allows for compulsory licensing in cases of national 
emergency. Approximately 13 million African lives have been lost since 
the onset of the crisis. According to the Rockefeller Foundation's 
recent report, ``on statistics alone, young people from the most 
affected countries in Africa are more likely than not to perish of 
AIDS.'' Consider that: more likely than not to perish. If these do not 
constitute emergency conditions, then I don't know what does.
  This was a very modest amendment to begin with, but the final version 
of the amendment discussed by the conferees was a true compromise. It 
was not as strong as I would have liked it to be. But it did push our 
policy closer to the right thing. I want to take this opportunity to 
thank Senator Feinstein, Senator Moynihan, Senator Roth, and their 
staffs for working so hard on this amendment. Senator Feinstein was a 
tireless advocate on this issue, and I have no doubt that she will 
continue to fight, as will I, for the right thing when it comes to 
access to HIV/AIDS pharmaceuticals. And Senator Roth, in particular, 
made it a priority to hammer out this issue, and I thank him for that.
  But despite these efforts, despite the concessions that Senator 
Feinstein and I made, despite the fact that this is the right thing to 
do, the Feinstein-Feingold amendment was stripped in conference. The 
opposition to our amendment is baffling. How do the conferees who 
killed this provision justify pressuring these countries, where in some 
cases life expectancies have dropped by more than 15 years, not to use 
all legal means at their disposal to care for their citizens? Without 
broader access to these drugs in Africa, more people will suffer, more 
people will die--that is a simple fact.
  As I said on this floor not long ago, I cannot imagine that ordinary 
Americans are urging their representatives to oppose the Feinstein-
Feingold amendment. I cannot imagine that anyone would try to prevail 
upon my colleagues to oppose this measure--except perhaps for 
pharmaceutical companies. The pharmaceutical industry does not fear 
losing customers in Africa, because they know that Africans simply 
cannot afford their prices. But they do fear that taking this modest 
step in this time of crisis could somehow, in some ill-defined scenario 
in the future, cut into their bottom line. This is the same 
pharmaceutical and medical supplies industry that gave more than $4 
million in PAC money contributions and more than $6.5 million in soft 
money contributions in 1997 and 1998.
  How could this irresponsible and callous decision to strip the 
Feinstein-Feingold amendment from the conference have been made? I have 
some idea. Some may have bowed to the pressure of the pharmaceutical 
industry. And some members just don't get it.
  In particular, some of the public comments about this issue made over 
the weekend by a leading Member of this body demonstrated such a 
misunderstanding of the problem that they cannot go unanswered.
  Over the weekend, some troubling remarks were made about the 
administration's recognition that HIV/AIDS, an infectious disease that 
currently affects 34 million people worldwide, is a security issue.
  First, a leader of this body disputed the fact that AIDS is a 
security issue. He is wrong. Anyone who believes that a dramatic drop 
in population, a massive reversal in economic growth, a societal 
disruption of unprecedented proportions, an entire generation of 
orphans growing up on the streets--anyone who believes that those 
things are not destabilizing is terribly misguided. Anyone who does not 
understand that the U.S. will be profoundly affected by the terrible 
consequences of AIDS in the developing world had better think again.
  But it didn't stop there. It went further. It was suggested that the 
administration is using the issue cynically to appeal to ``certain 
groups'' who were not identified.
  Is it pandering to ``certain groups'' to stand up and say that a 
disease that infects more than 15,000 young people each day is an issue 
of grave concern? Is it political posturing to get serious about the 
massive destabilization that can occur when the most productive segment 
of a society is wiped out by disease? Is it only some mysterious narrow 
constituency that is concerned about the prospect of millions of 
orphans growing up on the streets, without any guidance or education? 
After witnessing the shocking violence that resulted, in large part, 
from the masterful manipulation of disenfranchised youth in West Africa 
over the last decade, I think we all have to take this threat 
seriously, and acknowledge that the threat is fueled each day by the 
withering scourge of AIDS that today is galloping through so much of 
the developing world.
  Let me just paint a portrait of the region most affected by AIDS--
sub-Saharan Africa. As the ranking member of the Subcommittee on 
Africa, I have always felt very strongly about the issue of AIDS in 
Africa. I have raised it in meetings with African heads of state. I 
applauded the U.N. Security Council's decision to address the crisis 
earlier this year. I support the administration's call to increase the 
resources directed at the crisis, and I am glad that the U.S. is 
finally getting serious about this threat.
  Thirteen million Africans have been killed by AIDS since the onset of 
the crisis, and according to World Bank President James Wolfensohn, the 
disease has left 10 million orphaned African children in its wake.
  In Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, 25 percent of the people 
between the ages of 15 and 19 are HIV positive.
  By 2010, sub-Saharan Africa will have 71 million fewer people than it 
would have had if there had been no AIDS epidemic. That is why we must 
acknowledge that the AIDS epidemic is becoming a crucial part of the 
context for all that happens in Africa and for all of our policy 
decisions about Africa.
  Until this week this Senate has been moving in the right direction on 
these issues. I have been pleased to work with many of my colleagues in 
a bipartisan effort to raise the profile of the epidemic and to work 
toward a comprehensive package aimed at addressing this crisis. It 
disturbs me a great deal to think that Members of this body have 
somehow failed to hear us, or perhaps refused to listen.
  This is not a partisan issue. It is deadly serious. I plead with all 
of my colleagues to look again at the AIDS epidemic in Africa and to 
consider its global implications.
  Those implications are fast becoming strategic and economic realities 
that will kill millions and drag down all of our efforts on 
international development and the promotion of freedom and stability 
around the world. We need to get our heads out of the sand right now, 
resist the impulse to gain partisan advantage, and join together to 
seek solutions to the AIDS crisis before we reap global disaster.
  U.S. policy on access to HIV/AIDS drugs will come up again in this 
body. All of the complex issues relating to this crisis--prevention 
strategies, care for orphans, mother to child transmission--none of 
these issues is going away. And while this Congress fails to do the 
right thing, while some fail to grasp the magnitude of the epidemic and 
its consequences, AIDS will continue to take its terrible toll on 
families and communities, on economies, and on stability around the 
world.
  I yield the floor.

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