Africa and AIDS activists say the Bush Administration’s pledge to expedite its approval process for low-cost, generic anti-retroviral drugs by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will really slow delivery of drugs to those suffering while undermining the authority of the United Nations and World Health Organisation. “The net effect is to continue to delay the delivery of life-saving drugs to the most needy,” said Salih Booker, executive director of Africa Action, a Washington-based grassroots network and frequent critic of the administration’s anti-AIDS plan. “It looks to us like an elaborate ruse to protect the interests of the patent-holding U.S. drug companies while, at the same time, undermining the World Health Organisation’s own approval process.”