eoe-0605-018 letter to washington times about 6/27 op-ed piece "stealing us drug patents" by robert goldberg
(LOS ANGELES, POSTED JUNE 29, 2005)
update from washington times
(LOS ANGELES, POSTED JULY 1, 2005)
the washington times is interested in publishing the letter i wrote, tidied a bit. our correspondence follows.***
i believe it is appropriate to keep posted the comments that followed in response to the draft of my letter. so i am.
--rk
letter's back up. --rk
to: the editor,
washington times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/contact-us/
3600 new york ave ne
washington, dc 20002-1947
date: 6/29/2005
from: richard kearns
re: robert goldberg’s 6/27 opinion piece “stealing us drug patents.”
to the editor:
i was stunned when i read robert goldberg’s ill-condidered june 27 opinion article titled, “stealing us drug patents,” jawing about brazil’s claim “it must violate patents to make [aids] medicines affordable.” mr. goldberg says that country’s actions are inappropriate because “brazil's aids infection rate of 0.6 percent is about that of the united states, at 0.5 percent.”
how many dead people does it take—in brazil, or even worldwide—before big pharma will have made enough profit that it’ll be ok to save the leftovers without charging?
make an estimate. round it off to the nearest hundred thousand. do the long division and figure out how many bucks that is per death.
aids is a genocide of convenience, at best. it has killed primarily global riff-raff and undesirables—a needed ethnic cleansing. if you keep all those low-lifes alive, they’re probably going to want to eat, too. another financial loss to us industry. we’re not even talking about teaching them to read, or giving them real homes.
this is like not putting out a fire burning down your house because you can’t afford to pay the fire department for water, let alone for the truck and the time of the firefighters.this is called pillage. extortion, too.call me new-fashioned, but i thought we were on the planet to help one another, not plunder one another.
it’s a shame you aren’t hiv-infected yourself. you would probably change your attitude from that of what malcolm x called a “house negro” to something a teeny bit more progressive.
maybe you do have hiv disease. you don’t mention your hiv status. are you positive? are you negative? i think it’s a relevant and appropriate piece in information to have when reading your article.
what is your life worth?
i will be posting this letter with a link to your article on my blog, on the engines of enlightenment: journal of an aids shaman at
http://www.duckspot.com/rk/EOE-5.index.htm
i will be happy to post mr. goldberg’s response to my letter. It ought to be dicey.
by the way: if you can’t tell from the title of my blog, I have aids. i was diagnosed in 1987.
sincerely,
richard kearns
richard-kearns@sbcglobal.net
on the engines of enlightenment:
journal of an aids shaman
http://www.duckspot.com/rk/EOE-5.index.htm
(please feel free to publish my email address and my blogsite address. i would prefer you not publish my home address, but have included it so that you know i am a real person, part of the obligation i feel when writing a letter to any editor. thank you.)
dear ms. vabulas,
my apologies. i will be taking the letter down
tonight. thank you.
richard kearns
--- letters to the editor
wrote:
> > Mr. Kearns,
> > In order to publish the letter in The Times, it
> must be taken down from
> > your blog. Without doing so, it breaks the
> exclusivity policy we have.
> > Please let me know what you would like to do.
> >
> > Sarah Vabulas
> > Letters Editor
> > The Washington Times
> > 3600 New York Ave. NE
> > Washington, DC 20002
> > Fax: 202/715-0037
> > mail to: svabulas@washingtontimes.com
> >
> > ----------
> > From: letters to the editor
> > Sent: Friday, July 01, 2005 11:07 AM
> > To: 'richard kearns'
> > Subject: RE: TWT Comments: Robert Goldbergs 6/27
> Opinion
> > piece Stealing US Drug Patents.
> >
> > Mr. Kearns,
> > My name is Sarah Vabulas and I am the Letters
> Editor at The
> > Washington Times. I received your letter to the
> editor and we are
> > interested in publishing it. I just wanted to
> email you back and ask for
> > verification that you indeed wrote the letter and
> that The Washington
> > Times has exclusive use to the letter. Please feel
> free to email me back
> > or give me a call to let me know.
> >
> > Sarah Vabulas
> > Letters Editor
> > The Washington Times
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