TPP negotiators must correct the most damaging trade agreement ever for global health
While US aims to close the deal, countries should reject harmful provisions that impede access to affordable medicines.
Negotiators of the agreement should eliminate harmful provisions for access to medicines in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) or risk setting high drug prices and jeopardize the health of millions of people in the coming decades, he said the medical humanitarian Doctors Without Borders (MSF) organization, as today resumed negotiations in Maui, Hawaii. MSF's call comes as reports indicate that this could be the last negotiation before finalizing the agreement.
If adopted in its current form, the TPP, which is being negotiated between the US and 11 countries in the Pacific Rim, will have a devastating impact on global health. Strengthen, lengthen and create new patent monopolies and regulations for pharmaceuticals that will raise the price of drugs and decrease the availability of generic competitors to reduce the price.
"We have spoken out as high as we can, repeatedly warning that this is a bad deal for access to affordable medicines," said Manica Balasegaram Executive Director of the Campaign for Access to MSF, "all ministries of health, humanitarian groups like MSF, and global health programs funded by the US government depend on affordable medicines to provide medical care. Despite repeated warnings from MSF, other experts and stakeholders, including other countries, US negotiators They have driven provisions that benefit pharmaceutical companies at the expense of more than 800 million people who need access to affordable generic drugs in the current countries of the TPP ".
Some of the most worrying provisions in the center of the TPP is the practice called 'evergreening (perenización) Patent' that would force governments to grant TPP additional patents to pharmaceutical companies for changes to existing medicines, even when these changes not provide any therapeutic benefit to patients.
US negotiators They also have aggressively fought for 12 years 'data exclusivity' on biological drugs, including vaccines and medicines that treat conditions like cancer and multiple sclerosis. Data exclusivity prevents government regulators allow generic competitors, lowering prices to enter the market with previously generated data.
If companies get what they want, medicines and vaccines brand not face direct competition for excessively long periods of time, while patients, health care providers like MSF and people in developing countries suffer unnecessarily high prices TPP .
"Data exclusivity is not even legal in some of the countries currently negotiating the TPP" said Judit Rius Director and General Counsel of the MSF Access Campaign in the US, "US It is demanding that countries implement a devastating set of new trade rules that basically prevent people benefit for years of the latest advances in medicine, simply because it is in the interests of multinational pharmaceutical companies. Extended monopolies, such as being driven by US in the TPP, they are irresponsible and detrimental to public health. "
The provisions required by US negotiators breaking previous commitments by the US government global health, including a 2007 agreement in which US He agreed to allow fundamental safeguards for public health in future free trade agreements with developing countries.
"US has abandoned its earlier to protect the health of this trade policy commitments, "said Rius. "The TPP is a blueprint that sets a precedent for future trade agreements, denying countries the right to balance commercial interests with the public health needs of the population, which is rooted in the rules of international trade. This week could be the last opportunity for negotiators to mitigate some of the potential devastation of TPP. We request that the government negotiators protect access to medicines and address some of the most damaging provisions of the TPP ".
