Oxfam has accused international drug companies of denying developing countries life-saving medicines to treat diseases such as AIDS by forbidding them to copy the drugs. The aid organisation has criticised world trade rules on drug patents that are raising prices and restricting access to life-saving drugs. They are appealing to the World Health Organisation to change the patenting rules to enable developing countries to produce cheap copies of vital drugs to treat preventable diseases.
In a separate development, the premises of two pharmaceutical firms in the south of England were damaged by animal rights groups last night. The attacks were part of a campaign to shut down a research firm run by Huntington Life Sciences, which the demonstrators accuse of cruelty to animals.
Eighty people were arrested after activists began smashing windows and destroying laboratory equipment at a Bayer research laboratory north west of London. A laboratory belonging to the Glaxo Smithcline conglomerate in Surrey also came under attack. Police made a series of arrests. The British government has denounced what it called a campaign of harassment and intimidation against scientific research.
