BARCELONA, Spain, July 11 (UPI) -- Former President Bill Clinton Thursday urged the United States and Canada to pay the tab for anti-AIDS drugs for the poorer nations of the Caribbean.
In a talk at the 14th International AIDS Conference, Clinton said developing nations of the world should enter into agreements with pharmaceutical companies to provide the drugs, and the two nations should make up the difference between the costs of those drugs and what the Caribbean nations can provide.
"The rich countries should figure out what they owe and they should commit to pay it, and pay it in a timely fashion," Clinton said in a forum of former and present leaders from around the world.
The comments were greeted with thunderous applause, in sharp contract to jeers and shouts that greeted U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson, whose speech Tuesday was drowned out by protesters.
Clinton noted 15 Caribbean nations entered into an agreement with pharmaceutical companies during the conference and that was the first step toward getting commitments from the richer nations. "Give us something specific," he urged.
On the same forum, Dr. Denzil Douglas, prime minister of the Caribbean nation of St. Kitts-Nevis, said during the meeting he had signed agreements with a consortium of six drug companies to provide medications that can turn the deadly killer AIDS into a chronic disease.
Clinton, clearly a favorite of the crowd along with former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell, proposed a three-step program to allow the developing nations to obtain the drugs they need to save their populations:
-- First, he said, try to get a decent, livable price agreed to with the pharmaceutical companies.
-- If that proves unworkable, Clinton suggested the countries go to India and Brazil where generic drugs are being produced.
-- Then, he said, the appeal should be made to the rich countries to pick up the balance.
"The U.S. and Canada should provide for the money for the Caribbean," he said.
Also on the podium were past or present leaders of India, Rwanda, Mozambique, Tanzania and Portugal.
