Report Commissioned By EU Parliament Members Shows ACTA Will Increase Health Risks Worldwide

from the signing-on-to-kill-people dept

Fri, Aug 26th 2011 12:51pm — Mike Masnick

The members of the Green Party in the EU Parliament commissioned a report to look at the public health impact of ACTA. A draft of that report has been released and it warns of potentially severe negative impacts on public health. At issue: it will force member countries, including developing nations (which even WIPO has admitted are better off with more lax patent rules in order to deal with public health issues) to ratchet up enforcement of patents. Thus it is likely to "negatively impact public health worldwide." The report also points out that part of the problem is the secretive nature in which ACTA was negotiated, in which those who would have warned them of these public health problems were excluded from the negotiations. Furthermore, the report notes that the process ignored nine specific demands from the EU Parliament for transparency. The whole thing is a condemnation of ACTA, and should raise serious questions about why any country would sign on.

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Filed Under: acta, health

26 Comments

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Jay (profile), 26 Aug 2011 @ 1:02pm

Wait a second...
You mean the Protect IP Act wasn't the ACTA in disguise? So we have to deal with more laws that are byzantine, unnecessarily bureaucratic, draconian, and against consumer wishes? All because a few industry's can't figure out how to make money on the internet, the rest of the world has to suffer?

That sure is a great way to "Progress the Arts and Sciences" as based on the ideals of our forefathers...
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Aug 2011 @ 1:08pm

To protect the children, duh.
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- Hephaestus (profile), 26 Aug 2011 @ 8:36pm
  
  Re:
  To protect the profits, duh...
  
  FTFY
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fogbugzd (profile), 26 Aug 2011 @ 1:25pm

I am sure many nations will be pressured to sign ACTA and then will proceed to ignore its requirements. This will give license to larger nations to ignore the requirements. Only the nations that are controlled by the industry lobbyists will actually attempt to enforce ACTA, and eventually even the IP-heavy countries will end up ignoring ACTA.

ACTA attempts to fight basic economics in too many ways. Economics always beats regulations in the end.
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Aug 2011 @ 1:49pm

It's a head shaker. The green party in Europe commissions a study, and they have to go all the way to a law college in Washington to get a review. Why the heck would they do that? Perhaps the authors of the report are sympathetic to the cause?

Why wouldn't the European Green Party ask a university in Europe to do it?

This smells like "starting with the result and working backwards" again.
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- Anonymous Coward, 26 Aug 2011 @ 1:57pm
  
  Re:
  Isn't that how all these laws came about anyway?
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- Dark Helmet (profile), 26 Aug 2011 @ 2:02pm
  
  Re:
  "This smells like "starting with the result and working backwards" again."
  
  Irony....too thick....can't....breathe....
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- The eejit (profile), 26 Aug 2011 @ 2:21pm
  
  Re:
  Uhh, you mean like Hollywood's origin? Or the monopolisation of law in the US? Or the forced legal exploitation of consumers for bottom-line gain?
  
  My Hypo-sense is tingling!
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- jimbo, 26 Aug 2011 @ 3:37pm
  
  Re:
  just like the entertainment industries do then
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- Richard (profile), 26 Aug 2011 @ 4:18pm
  
  Re:
  This smells like "starting with the result and working backwards" again.
  
  Which doesn't necessarily make it wrong!
  
  I note you have no arguments other than ad hominem, as usual.
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- Anonymous Coward, 26 Aug 2011 @ 6:34pm
  
  Re:
  So, you started with the result of "this study must be wrong!" and worked backwards.
  
  Good job.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 26 Aug 2011 @ 8:25pm
    
    Re: Re:
    No, I actually started with "what an interesting study", and then got really suspicious when it didn't add up. It makes absolutely no sense to hire a group outside of the EU to do the job, unless nobody in the EU wanted to give them the answer the desired.
    
    It smells. What is a good premise and a good place to start a discussion is ruined because it really does appear that the Green party went "researcher shopping" until they found someone that agreed with them. That is the ultimate way to get the results you want.
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    - Hephaestus (profile), 26 Aug 2011 @ 8:50pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Hmmm ... new high priced malaria drugs replacing quinine, current aids drugs costing 2 years salary a month in Africa, banning and confiscating cheap pharma being shipped through various ports in the EU, if you are poor in the U.S.A. you may "APPLY" *(but may not receive) a reduced rate on these drugs ...
      
      A minimum of 50 million dead because of the high price of pharma in 18 years.
      
      Tell me how is that promoting the progress, or good for humanity?
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      - That Anonymous Coward (profile), 27 Aug 2011 @ 9:54am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Because all of the pharma execs will have more money, and this will encourage them to stop hiding it outside the US. They will in turn employee hundreds of new workers in the US and everything will be fine.
        
        So what if every other time we've given them a break this never happens. This time will be different.
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    - The eejit (profile), 27 Aug 2011 @ 12:01am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Actually, all the Universities in the EU are busy being eaten by variant conservative economic thinking. Kinda hard to research something when you have no money to teach.
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      - Anonymous Coward, 27 Aug 2011 @ 11:28am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        All the more reason why the Green Party showing up at the door with money to finance a study would be welcome.
        
        No, I think someone else got it right, Flynn would appear to be leaning their way. Too bad Mike didn't take a few minutes to check things out before running with this stinky pile of poo.
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    - Anonymous Coward, 27 Aug 2011 @ 1:09pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      So again, you have no actual criticism of the study except "I don't like it!"
      
      Not surprising.
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      - Anonymous Coward, 27 Aug 2011 @ 2:19pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Umm, no, I didn't comment on the study itself at all. I didn't have to go that far. Once you figure out who is writing and who is paying the bills, it isn't hard to understand the the content here likely isn't any more supportable than an RIAA report.
        
        You guys are all fast to pee all over reports you don't like, saying they aren't credible. I am saying that it is easy to see that this report has certain credibility issues before you even start reading, so why bother going any further? It is an agenda driven piece of "resear-formation", nothing more.
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        Anonymous Coward, 27 Aug 2011 @ 5:39pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Trying to believe in the RIAA is like trying to be sympathetic to somebody with M�nchausen syndrome that also do the M�nchausen syndrome by proxy.
        
        Believing the RIAA studies is like believing a drunk late at night in a bar.
        
        After all that lying the trust is gone.
        Even scientific experiments show that trust is a factor in how things are perceived and clearly the RIAA has none otherwise there wouldn't be so much people trashing your employer dude.
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        Anonymous Coward, 28 Aug 2011 @ 6:58am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Gee, another moron who thinks I work for the RIAA. What a freaking joke. I love the idea that you guys think that anyone who isn't a supporter of piracy, and who generally supports the idea of the law is somehow a paid shill.
        
        It proves only that you guys are dangerously clueless.
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    - Anonymous Coward, 27 Aug 2011 @ 5:22pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Or you know they wanted an outside perspective.
      
      You mean like it doesn't make sense to hire a third party to audit a firm?
      
      Why can't firms do their own auditing?
      Why government should never be in a position where they are responsible for watching and doing something?
      
      Can you show they did what you said they did, it is possible but they are not the ones with a really big long tails of past shopping in their belts so there is the trust thing, they are more legitimate than the MAFIAA will ever be.
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    - Anonymous Coward, 29 Aug 2011 @ 5:02pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Walk into the middle of a busy 'office' and loudly ask if anyone wants to complain about the boss.... wait for the crickets...
      
      Announce that you will be available one on one for private sessions if anyone has any issues they would like to bring up about their boss confidentially and you will get a TOTALLY different response....
      
      I wonder why that is.... now 'think bigger' and you'll understand why they may have looked for an 'independent' review.
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- justobvious (profile), 27 Aug 2011 @ 12:18pm
  
  Re: Boring trolls
  Their study on fundamental rights was done by European academics. What's your explanation for that - too parochial, too Europe-centred?
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dwh, 27 Aug 2011 @ 4:23am

ACTA and Green Party
For the record the report states on the first page that it was written by 2 UK academics: Douwe Korff, Professor of International law, London Metropolitan University and Ian Brown, Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford.
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- Anonymous Coward, 27 Aug 2011 @ 8:20am
  
  Re: ACTA and Green Party
  Perhaps we are reading different reports. A word search of the linked document did not find either of the two names you mention.
  
  As for "Why Mr. Flynn?", it is surely because the large majority of his work involves advocating the removal of all perceived limitations on drug distribution worldwide.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 28 Aug 2011 @ 7:00am
    
    Re: Re: ACTA and Green Party
    http://infojustice.org/archives/3426
    
    More proof that this "study" is just another opinion piece framed to be a study.
    
    Congratulations Mike Masnick, you have either (a) been completely hoodwinked by the Green Party, or (b) have completely failed in trying to sneak an astroturf "study" past our noses.
    
    Either way, bad boy!
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