Third-World Vaccine Development Plan Stalls

Wyeth, the U.S. pharmaceuticals company, already makes a pneumococcus vaccine, but it doesn't prevent infection by bacterial strains common to the developing world, according to the U.S. Treasury Department, which has been supporting the vaccine initiative in the Bush administration.

"Wyeth has always been supportive of the G-8's efforts around advanced market commitments for vaccine development," company spokesman Christopher Garland said in a statement.

Hopes that the G-8 leaders would push the plan in St. Petersburg, however, have gone astray at the negotiating table. The advance-market-commitment plan is one of three major drug-finance plans floating around the G-8. While the plans could complement each other, they also compete for the limited pool of aid resources-and political bragging rights.

Britain's chancellor of the exchequer, Gordon Brown, has championed what he calls the International Finance Facility, in which the G-8 would issue bonds to raise money to purchase drugs for poor nations. Several countries, including France and Italy, have signed on, according to a French government official. The Bush administration has said the British plan doesn't fit with the U.S. system of yearly budget appropriations.

France has lobbied for a new airline-ticket tax to fund drug purchases. The revenue will go for AIDS drugs and others in poor countries, according to a French official, who says 13 other countries have agreed to the tax plan.

At the summit-preparatory meeting last month, France argued that the G-8 should endorse the ticket-tax approach, provoking opposition from the United States and reluctance from Japan. Even Britain gave only tempered support to its European Union partner. A British Treasury spokesman said London would only go so far as to divert some of its current ticket-tax revenue to the French effort; it won't impose a new tax.

Failing to win support for its ticket tax, the French negotiator blocked the advance-market-vaccine proposal from the G-8 leaders' statement being drafted for the coming summit, according to three people familiar with the discussions.

The French government official played down the disagreement. At the same time, Japan and Germany shied away from the vaccine plan because of concern about the cost. "A number of other governments in the G-8 don't want to pony up more money for something right now," said a senior U.S. Treasury Department official.