You asked us...

whatever happened to the Canadian generic drugs legislation?

In May 2004, Parliament unanimously passed the Jean Chrétien Pledge to Africa Act (previously known as Bill C-9). This legislation effectively allows Canada to implement an August 2003 decision of the World Trade Organization (WTO). This decision allows WTO member countries to override patents so that they can produce lower-cost generic drugs for export to countries that lack the capacity to make the drugs themselves.

The process of drafting the regulations and passing the Act took more than twelve months, but it should come into force this year. It’s been an excruciatingly slow process. In the interim, NGOs and some generic manufacturers have held discussions about which drugs to produce and high on the list is the fixed-dose combination anti-retrovirals recommended by the World Health Organization.

If politicians, manufacturers and activists continue to move forward in the spirit of the original legislation, this could well be a breakthrough. Nothing should stand in the way of rolling out treatment to hundreds of thousands in the immediate future. And it’s equally clear that huge numbers of African lives could be prolonged and saved by generic drugs because they’re at a fraction of the cost of brand-name drugs.

For more information about the legislation, see the website of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network at www.aidslaw.ca

why are women so much more vulnerable to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa?

The following is an excerpt from Stephen Lewis’ speech to the University of Pennsylvania’s Summit on Global Issues in Women’s Health, Philadelphia, April 26, 2005: (full speech: pdf download here)

• "…because I see the evidence…in the unremitting carnage of women and AIDS – …young women, who crave so desperately to live, …who can’t even get treatment because the men are first in line, or the treatment rolls out at such a paralytic snail’s pace… who are part of the 90% of pregnant women who have no access to the prevention of Mother to Child Transmission and so their infants are born positive… who carry the entire burden of care even while they’re sick, tending to the family, carrying the water, tilling the fields, looking after the orphans … the women who lose their property, and have no inheritance rights, and no legal or jurisprudential infrastructure which will guarantee those rights … no criminal code which will stop the violence … because I have observed all of that …and am driven to distraction by the recognition that it will continue, I want a kind of revolution in the world’s response, not another stab at institutional reform, but a virtual revolution."

where did the money come from and
how is it being spent?

• In 2004, thanks to the generosity of our donors, we raised $3.2 million – of which $1 million arrived during the month of December alone!

• If you look at the pie chart, you’ll see that more than 60% of our revenue comes from individuals, many of whom organized or participated in community events.

Stephen Lewis Foundation 2004 Revenue Sources

• By June 2005, we distributed in excess of $2 million. We continue to assess new projects on an ongoing basis.

• We’ve managed to keep our administration costs to under 10% of our revenue (7.2% in 2004).

For more information, please contact us
or view our return on the Canada Revenue Agency website.

From the Grassroots
...of Canada
All across the country Canadians have undertaken projects large and small... [more]
...of Africa
Here are three examples of projects that continue to inspire us... [more]
Look at Your Reach
The Stephen Lewis Foundation currently funds over 60 initiatives with 35 organizations in 12 countries in sub-Saharan Africa [more] (pdf download)
Voices From the Front Lines
Jenny Parsley in South Africa and Siphiwe Hlope from Swaziland share their experiences [more]
The Year in Review
[more]
You Asked Us
Whatever happened to the Canadian generic drugs legislation? [more]
Why does there need to be such a strong focus on women? [more]
Where did the money come from and how is it being spent? [more]
If you can give more
We've been humbled by the response of Canadians to the Foundation... [more]

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Our Grassroots newsletters are available as pdf downloads:
December 2006 (1.5mb)
July 2005 (1.1mb)