Obama Administration Trying To Move Away From Allowing Countries To Ignore Patents To Save Lives
from the sickening dept
Well here's another depressing one. For about a decade, there's been something known as the Doha Declaration, under the World Trade Organization (WTO), which effectively said that since public health and "access to medicines for all" was important, countries could have some "flexibility" in dealing with patented medication. In practice, this has meant that in order to deal with health issues, countries can ignore patents when necessary to make sure there is more medicine and that the medicine is reasonably priced. This is good for public health.Of course, the pharmaceutical companies hate it.
KEI is tracking how the Obama Administration has been quietly backing away from the Doha Declaration and limiting the types of diseases that can be covered under Doha. Even though Doha is pretty clear that it can cover any kind of medicine in the interest of public health, a recent draft text for new agreements clearly (but quietly) tries to make sure that "Non-Communicable Diseases" (NCDs) are not considered to be covered by Doha. In other words, if you're talking about cancer, diabetes or heart disease... countries won't be able to use Doha to provide cheap and necessary drugs to people.
There's apparently a negotiation going on about an agreement on NCDs which, not surprisingly, has been driven by people representing the pharmaceutical industry. In one particularly egregious situation, according to the KEI report, a group representing the pharma industry was "grouped as civil society" at one of the meetings. Yes, for the purposes of one of the meetings, pharma lobbyists were labeled as a consumer interest group.
The end result is that, as it stands right now, the draft text around NCDs does not mention the Doha Declaration any more. This may not seem like a big deal, in that it still mentions "flexibilities," but trying to carve out what is and what is not covered by Doha clearly appears to be a means of ratcheting back the ability of countries to do the right thing in protecting public health:
By seeking to eliminate any references to the Doha Declaration, the U.S. appears to be asserting that the "access to medicine for all" provisions in the Doha Declaration do not apply to drugs for cancer and other non-communicable diseases.It's tough not to be cynical about this kind of stuff. But I'm having trouble seeing this as anything other than doing a favor for the pharma industry.
[....]
Why is this controversy important? The US has conceded that compulsory licenses can be used for NCDs, an issue of no controversy legally, but politically sensitive. However, by removing the reference to the Doha Declaration, and maintaining the political position that the Doha Declaration does not apply to NCDs, the White House seeks to eliminate the "access to medicine for all" standard, and to raise doubts about the application of other elements of the Doha Declaration, including paragraphs 5, 6 and 7 to NCDs, if not legally, at least politically.
There was some hope that the administration might clarify its position and answer some questions related to this in a USTR paper that was recently released, but the actual release turned out to be nearly totally devoid of substance, angering plenty of consumer groups concerned about access to medicine. Even worse, the paper appears to suggest that greater patent protection may make more sense. The summary from Tido von Schoen-Angerer makes all this clear:
The leaked papers reveal a number of U.S. objectives: to make it impossible to challenge a patent before it is granted; to lower the bar required to get a patent (so that even drugs that are merely new forms of existing medicines, and don't show a therapeutic improvement, can be protected by monopolies); and to push for new forms of intellectual property enforcement that give customs officials excessive powers to impound generic medicines suspected of breaching IP.The really amazing thing is how incredibly short-sighted this is. Even if you wanted to argue that it's somehow "good for the economy" to artificially prop up pharma companies with longer and stronger patents, if it comes at the expense of public health, that's not going to help the economy at all. A healthy population is a consuming population. Letting people die around the world is not good for the economy.
And there's more.
The U.S. will also reportedly introduce measures to make it harder and more expensive for generic drugs to get regulatory approval, and to lengthen patent monopolies for pharmaceutical firms so that they keep generics out and prop up drug prices for longer. All of these measures are known to hit the availability of affordable medicines in developing countries hard.
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Filed Under: access to medicines, healthcare, patents
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Follow the money
http://cciio.cms.gov/resources/files/alw_hra_05132011.pdf
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Poor countries will have even less reason to care about these agreements. I doubt it will even make a difference most places.
If the citizens of these countries have the technical ability and economic/political motivation, I fully expect them to give us the middle finger and do it anyway, as they should.
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On the other hand....
On the other hand... If your population is healthy while the rest of the people around the world die it is good for the economy.
Erm... the grass is always greener? no.. Uh...whatever.
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The price of preventative inhalers without insurance is outrageous and disgusting.
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Actually, fewer living people means lower unemployment, less drain on resources, and a greater abundance of food. Fewer workers means higher wages for labor and thus an improved standard of living, as well as an increase in tax revenue. This leads to a sharp decrease in the prosperity gap between rich and poor nations, ultimately resulting in the return of working-class jobs to the good old USA. It's really a win/win for everyone. Unless, of course, you have a soul or a conscience, or whatever. Which, fortunately, no one does.
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Not shocking, just disappointing.
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Re:
and what about after he's elected? He needs to have some nice friends in high places that can help advance his future career.
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The government is stuck with the "plan" to dominate IP as a form to keep it relevant in the world, the thing is nobody, not even Americans should respect IP if they want to be able to function.
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What about the costs to the Government? To the People? To the Economy?
This is most definitely a Job Killer and Bad for the budget and bad for the economy.
This boosts the costs of Small Business to provide health plans to workers. It reduces the money in the pockets of the common man to buy products. And it costs Tax Payers who pay the premium price for drugs under Government programs.
All to line the pockets of a VERY rich set of companies.
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Re: What about the costs to the Government? To the People? To the Economy?
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Selfish people and their lives.
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Which reminds me of Google, that has nothing to do with manufacturing cars but is the only one apparently in the US doing autonomous vehicles, while automakers in China and Europe are leading the way to advances in the area, how sad is that?
Then when American auto makers go broke again it should not surprise anyone, we all know why they can't compete by now and that will happen to all industries that try to use IP as a protectionism mechanism to try and stay relevant.
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Death is not(?) good for the economy...
Do you have any studies backing this? My gut feeling is that people with endangered health assume a "whatever it costs" desperation, even if it means driving them to the brink of bankruptcy (or over the edge). And if the poor are a burden on society's coffers, their deaths free up funds to better stimulate the economy.
Unless of course, there are causes more important than a free market... :-)
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Samsung just upped the stakes it will go after Apple and block anything they can anywhere they can.
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-09-samsung-sales-iphone.html
How long until other countries start blocking US companies from operating in their territories too?
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Re: Death is not(?) good for the economy...
And you don't need a study to confirm that you just need to go to the websites of hospitals and see the prices they charge.
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Re: Death is not(?) good for the economy...
The first thing companies try to reduce is personnel, that alone should give pause to people thinking IP is good.
Giving a monopoly to one entity is what really kills jobs in the market.
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Medical Patents are killing the Human Lives industry
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Is there a reliable reference that shows this is in fact the case?
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I would love you to show how they do it.
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Re: Re: What about the costs to the Government? To the People? To the Economy?
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Is there a reliable reference that shows this is in fact the case?
A few years ago, my friend had a heart attack and had to have a stent put in one of his arteries. Along with that, he has to take an expensive medication (I forget the name, but I can check if you want), which is several hundred dollars for each refill. At the time he had health insurance, which his sister was helping him pay for (he's self-employed), but now he's un-insured. The only way he's able to afford the medication he needs is by buying it from a pharmacy in Canada that imports a generic version from some other country. Without it, his blood would probably clot around the stent and cause another heart attack.
This is exactly the kind of medication that the US government wants to exclude. Not only that, they want to stop people from buying medications from other countries such as Canada, supposedly to protect consumers. It's really to protect the pharma companies' profits.
I have Psoriatic Arthritis and a few years ago, I was having trouble walking. Most of the existing drugs didn't help much. I went on a drug study where I received a monthly IV infusion of Orencia, which helped greatly. I was told that to receive the same treatments outside the study would cost about $4,000 a dose.
I'm now on a study that has almost completely cleared up my Psoriasis, and seems to be keeping the arthritis under control. I have no idea what the retail cost of this drug is, but I'm reasonably sure I wouldn't be able to afford it.
I have no idea what I'll do when they decide to end this study...
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http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/12348/
Patents Kill
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/editorial_09
Patents Kill
In India, where a flu pandemic will be apocalyptic, pharma geeks are infringing patents in order to survive.
http://www.alternet.org/story/27390/
Update: Patents Kill: Compulsory Licenses and Genzyme’s Life Saving Drug
http://blog.mises.org/15365/update-patents-kill-compulsory-licenses-and-genzymes-life-saving-d rug/
Medical Innovation and Patent Gridlock
http://www.aidsnews.org/2005/06/patent-gridlock.html
http://www.google.com/search?q=pha rma+patents+that+kill
http://www.baidu.com/s?wd=pharma+patents+that+kill
http://www.bing.com/searc h?q=pharma+patents+that+kill
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Just shows..
It's not Obama; it's how it works in politics, whether the president is Republican or Democrat - they are all corrupt to some degree.
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Re: Medical Patents are killing the Human Lives industry
Way to go, Americans, how to get yourselves hated, in one easy lesson. You do realize that this is going to backfire in a big bad way, don't you?
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This seems to be a political concession but not a legal change.
I agree this is something to complain about. In fact, lots of things need to be in the complaining bin.
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As for medications, everything I have ever read makes note of the fact that in the poorer regions of the world the major contributing factors to disease treatment is associated with the lack of dearth of medical facilities, medical personnel, distribution channels, etc.
These have noting to do with patents. The have everything to do with the lack of readily available treatment facilities and personnel needed to provide medical care.
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wondering...
Whether you like it or not pharma companies and doctors etc are in business to make money. They aren't charities, but the nature of their business makes people think they should be charities - a doctor should be in it to make people healthy, not just to make money right? Wrong.
A doctor's number one concern should be to make money. The means by which he does that should be by making people more healthy.
And we need it to be that way, because nothing else is sustainable... Unfortunately, charities must be funded - usually by businesses.
I'd place a pretty big bet that the pharma companies have produced more to promote public health than charities and the government combined.
Its tough to walk the fine line that the pharma companies are on and we have to remember that when making policies. Its very easy to say hey its good for public health to give drugs away for free. Its hard to be the one who is "against public health" by actually having to make a living by keeping people living! How horrible those companies are - doing everything they can to stay in the business of making people healthier by demanding they be paid!
If you're really concerned about public health you'd be concerned with making sure the pharma companies can stay in business. Just because they're supposed to be keeping us healthy doesn't mean the economics work any differently.
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I have worked for both the recording industry and big pharma (and have asthma from the former) and they lie to everyone, especially themselves. How else can you pass a polygraph or Congress for that matter, if you don't believe your own story?
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