WikiLeaks Reveals White House View On Trade And Drug Prices

For months, consumer advocates have railed that the Obama administration was taking a secretive approach toward the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks and likely jeopardizing access to essential medicines throughout the Asia and the Pacific region. They warned that a restrictive deal would increase the power of the pharmaceutical industry and, eventually, bind Americans to the same terms. Now, those concerns appear to have been validated after WikiLeaks released a trove of negotiating documents dated as recently as three months ago that indicate the White House was pushing Asian countries to reach such a deal by the end of this year. However, the documents also reveal there is division among the countries over such key issues as patent protection for drugmakers (here are the leaked documents). “The document confirms fears that the negotiating parties are prepared to expand the reach of intellectual property rights, and shrink consumer rights and safeguards,” says Jamie Love of Knowledge Ecology International, an advocacy group that focuses on intellectual property issues and access to medicines, in a statement. “… The text reveals that the most anti-consumer and anti-freedom country in the negotiations is the US, taking the most extreme and hard line positions on most issues… The US proposals would create new global legal norms that would allow foreign governments and private investors to bring legal actions and win huge damages, if TPP member countries do not em...
Source: Pharmalot - Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: Source Type: blogs