Oxford University Stop AIDS Group meets with East Oxford MP!
March 8th, 2007This post was written by Diarmaid. You can read more posts by: Diarmaid or more posts in Oxford, Society News
East Oxford MP meet Stop AIDS in Trinity College:
[Click on the links at the bottom of the page to see some photos from the event!]
On Monday 5 March, members of Student Stop AIDS Society, Oxford University, met with East Oxford Labour MP Andrew Smith in Trinity College. The society gave him 130 campaign cards, or ‘pill cards’, collected from his constituents. The warmly lit room provided a congenial venue for an engaging lunch-time discussion.
The Stop AIDS Campaign is a call on UK and G8 leaders to enforce commitments to universal access to AIDS treatment. Specific asks of the campaign are ensuring financing for treatment and health systems as well as equitable trade laws under the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Members of Oxford’s UNICEF Society joined the meeting to present Smith with a copy of their petition to G8 leaders on universal access to AIDS treatment that included over 400 collected signatures from Oxford. Mr. Smith graciously accepted the cards and petitions.
Students pressed Smith to take action on a number of global AIDS issues, including calling for UK support on Thailand’s recent efforts to produce generic copies of Kaletra. Kaletra is a new, highly-effective second-line antiretroviral drug that is under strict patent protection and therefore is unaffordable for the world’s poor who could most benefit from it. The students encouraged Smith to lobby the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to support Thailand in its appropriate use of flexibilities under the Trade Related Aspects of International Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement of the WTO.
Smith claimed that the government “doesn’t need reminding” on global AIDS because of its strong track record. He claimed, for instance, that the government had committed 359 million pounds in total to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
Students’ questions indicated, however, that there is much to be done and clarified. Smith pledged to bring several of their concerns to Parliament’s attention. These included: the need for transparency on government expenditure on AIDS (as opposed to its commitments); advocating that the Department for International Development (DFID) and DTI take active steps to promote the full use of TRIPS flexibilities in the interest of public health; as well as investigating the treatment rights of HIV-positive asylum seekers living in the UK, as well as those in detention centres.
Stop AIDS treasurer Emma Farrow was dissatisfied with Smith’s lack of support for the Early Day Motion 107 to promote the production and distribution of generic AIDS medicines, tabled late last year in Parliament. Smith claimed that early day motions are not effective. Farrow commented that “This is the traditional UK way of setting government action in motion, exerting pressure through majority opinion and holding government to account. His excuse about not wanting to accede to the particular form of words was also not really satisfying. If early day motions were completely futile as Mr. Smith made out, then they would have been dropped by now.”
Smith, however, emphasized his support for the Stop AIDS Campaign and expressed appreciation for the students’ efforts thus far. He made commitments to take these issues forward in parliamentary questions, write to the DTI and DFID, and update the campaign on any progress.
students giving Smith signed pill cards from local students and Oxford residents
