Malaysian Government Backing Away From TPP Support: Worried About Locking Up Medicine

from the good-for-them dept

Thu, Aug 9th 2012 12:17am — Mike Masnick

As the secretive Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations move forward, it appears that some more members are expressing concerns. In the past, we'd noted that politicians in Chile were questioning what benefit there was to being locked into the US's rules. And, now, another TPP negotiating member, Malaysia, seems to be questioning the agreement. The report claims that the government is now against TPP, though the actual article really only highlights the (significant) concerns from Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai, who claims that TPP "would be detrimental to the local medical industry."

"We are against the patent extension. According to the agreement, if a medicine is launched in the US, and then three years later it is launched in Malaysia, the patent would start from when it is launched here and not when it was launched earlier in the US," said Liow. "This is not fair."

The end result, he warns, is that the TPP would make healthcare less affordable to citizens of Malaysia. Hopefully he really does represent the views of the Malaysian government and they really are considering dropping out over this issue.

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Filed Under: malaysia, medicine, patents, tpp

15 Comments

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Bob Guta, 9 Aug 2012 @ 12:47am

Dirty Commie!
Ol' Dirty Commie Bastard!!!
Capitalism is comin', oh yeah baby!!!
Muwahahaha...
Free American style market economy for the win!!!
USA, USA, USA!!!
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Anonymous Monkey (profile), 9 Aug 2012 @ 1:14am

Re: Dirty Commie!
Dude.. Seriously ?!? Whatever meds they have you on they either need to up the dose or change the 'script
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Zakida Paul (profile), 9 Aug 2012 @ 1:32am

Re: Dirty Commie!
"Free American style market economy"

That made me laugh so heartily that I almost peed. There isn't a free market in the Western World.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Aug 2012 @ 1:41am

Re: Re: Dirty Commie!
Yes there is, is called "black market" :)
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Dionaea (profile), 9 Aug 2012 @ 1:44am

If not this then what is left?
'Hopefully he really does represent the views of the Malaysian government and they really are considering dropping out over this issue.'

If the health of your own people isn't a reason to ditch a stupid trade agreement I don't know what is...
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Aug 2012 @ 2:04am

Are your politicians for sale?

Anonymous is now paying for propaganda videos against granted monopolies :)

ps: Anonymous donors that is.

If this video is a hit, it could be the first in a series of videos focused on "online freedom and copyright." The next one might be tied to the American elections in November.

Why the secrecy? "You see what's happening with people who are involved in this kind of stuff," "Andrew" told us. "Especially when you're directly attacking against political figures. We don't want to attract unnecessary attention in our lives."

He said he was motivated by the sight of people being "getting arrested left and right in different countries for various copyright infringement 'offenses.'" He said that copyright issues "affect pretty much anybody."

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/anonymous-donors-bring-hollywood-production-va lues-to-anti-mpaa-video/

Maybe they do a short on the whole drug monopoly stuff too.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Aug 2012 @ 2:42am

Re: If not this then what is left?
depends on how much 'incentive' is being thrown around!
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Aug 2012 @ 2:46am

Re: If not this then what is left?
With big pharma money backing Malaysian gov't officials, they can afford to import drugs for themselves for 3 years. It's ok to screw your fellow citizen over as long as you take care of yourself and your family.
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Rekrul, 9 Aug 2012 @ 3:43am

The end result, he warns, is that the TPP would make healthcare less affordable to citizens of Malaysia.

Damn freetards think they have some kind of a right to live without paying for it!
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Pixelation, 9 Aug 2012 @ 4:25am

Which will die first, the TPP or the Malasian people?
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anon, 9 Aug 2012 @ 6:01am

lol
Love the comments in here , lol i laughed so hard then harder when i realized that most people think TPP is just a joke to laugh at.I think by the time i wrote this comment there was only one comment that was not a joke about TPP.
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Glen, 9 Aug 2012 @ 7:08am

Re: Re: Dirty Commie!
"There isn't a free market in the Western World." And that comment made me cry a little bit. It would be nice to actually see a free market somewhere.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Aug 2012 @ 8:00am

Re: Re: If not this then what is left?
If the leaders don't agree, they can always just sue them like they did with Nelson Mandella during the AIDS crisis. I sure that will bring back memories.
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greenbird (profile), 9 Aug 2012 @ 10:07am

Re: Dirty Commie!
Ummm...you do realize that patents and copyright are the antithesis of capitalism and free markets?
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Aug 2012 @ 6:41pm

Re: Re: Dirty Commie!
I think it's sarcasm.
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