from the but,-fast-track's-in-place,-so-too-bad,-suckers dept
Over the last few years, we've seen leaks here and there of the various chapters of the TPP agreement, but generally ones that are quite out of date. The latest public leak of the "intellectual property" chapter that I'm aware of was done
last October by Wikileaks and was the version from the previous May (2014). Now, Politico
claims that someone has leaked the May 2015 version, though Politico has not published the document (which, frankly, is pretty lame for a journalism property). But, based on Politico's report, the agreement still looks to be what everyone's been saying it would be: a huge gift to giant corporate special interests, such as Big Pharma:
The draft text includes provisions that could make it extremely tough for generics to challenge brand-name pharmaceuticals abroad. Those provisions could also help block copycats from selling cheaper versions of the expensive cutting-edge drugs known as “biologics” inside the U.S., restricting treatment for American patients while jacking up Medicare and Medicaid costs for American taxpayers.
“There’s very little distance between what Pharma wants and what the U.S. is demanding,” said Rohat Malpini, director of policy for Doctors Without Borders.
In response, the USTR falls back on its standard lame reply, about how draft texts are not "final." But this is why it's actually important to post these draft texts
publicly, because what the draft Politico saw appears to show is that, whether or not it gets it, the USTR is fighting for policies that would harm poor, sick people, and massively benefit giant pharmaceutical conglomerates.
The highly technical 90-page document, cluttered with objections from other TPP nations, shows that U.S. negotiators have fought aggressively and, at least until Guam, successfully on behalf of Big Pharma.
That bit of information seems rather important in determining whose interests the USTR is truly representing in these negotiations. Remember, that while the final agreement will be posted publicly, the negotiating texts (which show what each side argued for) are being
kept secret for four years after ratification -- by which point the staff at the USTR will likely have turned over greatly, and whoever is there now can pretend they had nothing to do with the negotiating positions that the US is now locked into.
And, of course, now that
fast track is the law, Congress can't even step in to fix it. They'll only be allowed an up/down vote on the entire agreement -- with tremendous pressure on them to approve the whole thing, even if there are dangerous provisions mixed in the overall agreement.
Of course, we all know that this is
why the agreement is secret. It's not politically feasible for the US government to publicly show that it's fighting against the health interests of the public and in favor of pharma profits. But it appears that's exactly what's happening behind closed doors. And that seems... wrong.
Filed Under: big pharma, biosimilar, competition, drugs, generics, ip, patents, pharma, pharmaceuticals, tpp
