MPs should reflect on the emergency situation of their people. They now have the power to alleviate their suffering But we know that [MPs] are also under pressure from pharmaceutical companies willing to use subtle but not very transparent ways to push their case. Things have happened that worry us. (30) At the signing of the agreement in Nairobi, President and CEO Prakash Patel said: “The door to access to essential medicines for the people of Kenya and East Africa will now be open. (38) Cosmos will be the second largest African producer of generic ARV medicines, after the South African company Aspen Pharmacare, which announced a similar approach in early 2004. Cosmos Industries obtained its license from Glaxo SmithKline in 2004. REMARKS: 1.- See Patrick Orege, The Need for Antiretrovirals, Sunday Standard (Nairobi), 29 August 2004, Page 20. back to text 2.- See Noel Wandera, New Health Plan to Benefit Aids Patients, East African Standard (Nairobi), national news section, 27 August 2004, p. 4.
back to text 3. – See Daily Nation Article, 27 August 2004. back to text 4.- See the general website of the Kenya AIDS Watch Initiative (KAWI) under www.kenyaaidinstitute. org (most recent visited 22 Oct. 2004). Return to text 5.- Ebd. back to text 6.- Ebd. Returning to text 7.- Aspects of the TRIPS problem and patents relating to access to AIDS medicines in Kenya have been identified in three of my studies: Ben Sihanya, Constructing Copyright and Creativity in Kenya: Cultural Politics and the Political Economy of Transnational Intellectual Property, JSD (doctoral) dissertation, Stanford Law School, 2003 (in preparation for the book, 2005); Ben Sihanya, TRIPS and Access to Drugs, Food and the Pertinence Technologies in Kenya: Reforming Intellectual Property and Trade Laws for Sustainable Development, ecoNews Africa research report (Nairobi), on the impact of the IP regime under the TRIPS Agreement on Kenya Preparation of the WTO meeting in Cancn, 2003; Ben Sihanya, Patent Wars Raging over Aids Cure, Daily Nation, Opinion: Pandemic, December 17, 2003, p. 9.
Cf. Arthur Okwemba, Kenya now produces AIDS drugs: But subtle pressure is already being exerted on the government to stop licensing, Daily Nation, Horizon, Science/Technology/The World of Ideas, 1 April 2004, p. . . .
