Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – What is it?
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
is currently under negotiation and establishes a free trade area
including Australia, the United States of America, Brunei Darussalam,
Chile, New Zealand, Singapore, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru and
Vietnam.
This is a trade deal which could
risk environmental laws, increase the cost of medicines (of particular
significance in Vietnam) and enable corporations to sue governments in
some circumstances. The secretive nature of these negotiations is
extremely concerning; especially when so much is at stake.
WikiLeaks released the draft text of
a chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement on 2011. The
full agreement covers a number of areas, but the chapter published by
WikiLeaks focuses on intellectual property rights, an area of law which
has effects in areas as diverse as pharmaceuticals and civil
liberties. The TPP also presents a threat to Australia’s Pharmaceutical
Benefits Scheme (PBS) with America’s pharmaceutical industry association
flagging modifying programs for subsidising medicines as one of its key
objectives.
Knowledge Ecology International provides good background to the negotiations and the MSF letter to affected countries – Don’t trade away health – can be seen here. To read the analyses and updates that have been published in HAIAP Newsletters click here.
July 10 2015
Friday, July 10, 2015
by
Common Dreams
Latest TPP Draft Benefits Big Pharma By Slashing Access to Generics
http://tinyurl.com/pcvdy87
With another round of Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations
slated
for the end of this month, the administration of President Barack Obama
is aiming to force developing nations to adopt Big Pharma-friendly
policies that are so bad for public health Obama himself has opposed
them in the United States.
Citing leaked drafts of the agreement, as well as officials “familiar with the latest May 11 version,”
Bloomberg journalist Peter Gosselin
reported
Friday that the deal is likely to include provisions that are almost
certain to hike medicine costs while slashing access to generic drugs
around the world: “At stake: hundreds of billions of dollars or more in
extra costs that consumers may have to pay if the proposals make it
harder for cheaper generics to win approval.”
In the negotiations, Obama is pursuing corporate-friendly policies he has rejected at home.
For example, “U.S. negotiators want to win makers of advanced drugs 12
years of exclusivity for data that might otherwise help competitors
produce similar, cheaper versions,” wrote Gosselin. However, the Obama
administration has sought, within the United States, to
reduce that period to seven years.
But it doesn’t stop there. “Negotiators are also seeking language to
make it easier for the big drugmakers to win ‘secondary’ patents to
strengthen their control over products,” Gosselin continued. But
domestically, the administration “
has proposed changing
U.S. law to make it harder to get such add-ons,” Gosselin explained.
Obama is poised to not only foist these policies on other countries, but
to trap the U.S. in them as well.
What’s more, said Gosselin, the United States “has negotiators pressing
the region’s developing countries to sign onto a schedule for adopting
the stronger rules, reversing previous exemptions to allow them easier
access to cheap medicines.”
Obama is reportedly meeting opposition from countries involved in the
negotiations. Meanwhile, global civil society and social movement groups
have staged their strong opposition to the deal with protests, open
letters, and organizing. However, resistance would likely be even
greater if the contents of the talks were shared with the global public.
Read more
here
June 16, 2015: Community opposition defeats TPP Fast Track Bill in US Congress
http://aftinet.org.au/cms/node/973
Media Release June 13, 2015
“Despite procedural manoeuvres, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Fast
Track Bill was defeated in the US House of Representatives overnight.
This was a victory for the US
community campaign against
the secrecy of the TPP process and provisions of the TPP which threaten
jobs, medicine prices, food safety and Internet freedom and would
expose health and environmental protections to challenges from foreign
investors, and lack meaningful and enforceable labour rights and
environmental protections,” said Dr Patricia Ranald, Coordinator of the
Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network (AFTINET).
YOU CAN’T READ THE TPP AND YOU CAN’T FIND OUT WHO IN CONGRESS HAS – Jon Schwarz
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/13/cant-read-tpp-cant-find-congress/
“You probably know by now that no normal Americans are allowed to see
the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. It’s
classified. Even members of Congress can only read it by going to
secure reading rooms in
the basement of the Capitol. So I’d say it’s almost certain that most
of the 219 representatives and 62 senators who’ve voted to “fast track”
the TPP have never even looked at it.”
Big pharma is the real winner in TPP plan
Deborah Gleeson
June 11 The Drum ABC
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-11/gleeson-big-pharma-is-the-real-winner-in-tpp-plan/6538860
June 10, WikiLeaks released a close-to-final draft of the
Trans-Pacific Partnership’s (TPP) annex on pharmaceuticals and medical devices.
The supposed aim of this part of the TPP is to achieve “transparency”
and “procedural fairness” in programs that subsidise these products,
such as Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. But like the TPP
negotiations themselves, it is anything but transparent. And it’s
certainly not fair.
It’s been more than three-and-a-half years since the public last saw a
draft of the annex. But while the revised draft is certainly better than
the first,
it still has major problems.
The annex is now closely modelled on the provisions in the Australia-US
Free Trade Agreement. In theory, it should result in few if any changes
to our PBS. But small changes that have been made to the legal wording
may end up having big effects on the way the rules are implemented. And
there is a consultation mechanism that could be used to apply ongoing
pressure to countries to make changes to their health programs in the
interests of the US-based pharmaceutical and medical device industries.
Even more worrying, pharmaceutical companies will be able to sue
governments directly over their pharmaceutical policies in international
tribunals using the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism (ISDS) –
and the terms of the annex may bolster their claims. This is the same
type of legal avenue that tobacco giant Philip Morris is using to sue
Australia over our plain packaging laws, and US pharmaceutical company
Eli Lilly is using to sue Canada over its decisions on medicine patents.
The annex appears to be mainly intended to target New Zealand’s
Pharmaceutical Management Agency (PHARMAC). Some of its provisions –
such as adhering to specified timeframes for assessing applications and
disclosing rules used to assess them – will impose substantive new
obligations on PHARMAC that could reduce its effectiveness by limiting
its flexibility and autonomy, and allowing the industry to frustrate its
decision making.
These threats to New Zealand’s drug program are particularly worrying
given that PHARMAC is highly effective in containing costs while
ensuring affordable access to medicines. This makes it a model
pharmaceutical coverage program suitable for adoption by developing
countries.
The Healthcare Transparency Annex is clearly intended to cater to the
interests of the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. The annex
serves no public interest purpose and provides a negative precedent for
future regional trade agreements. It could also constrain the options
of developing countries in introducing pharmaceutical coverage programs
in future. The negotiating countries should not agree to its inclusion
in the TPP.
Deborah Gleeson’s full commentary on the leaked TPP annex is published on the WikiLeaks site. Dr Deborah Gleeson
is a lecturer in the School of Public Health and Human Biosciences at La Trobe University.
June 10, 2015
TPP Transparency Chapter
Annex On Transparency And Procedural Fairness For Pharmaceutical Products And Medical Devices
https://wikileaks.org/tpp/healthcare/press.html
Wednesday 10 June 2015, WikiLeaks published the Healthcare Annex to the
secret draft “Transparency” Chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership
Agreement (TPP), along with each country’s negotiating position. The
Healthcare Annex seeks to regulate state schemes for medicines and
medical devices. It forces healthcare authorities to give big
pharmaceutical companies more information about national decisions on
public access to medicine, and grants corporations greater powers to
challenge decisions they perceive as harmful to their interests.
The draft is restricted from release for four years after the passage of the TPP into law.
The Obama administration was trying to gain “Fast-Track” approval for all three from the US House of Representatives
on June 11, having already obtained such approval from the Senate.
Julian Assange, WikiLeaks publisher, said:
It is a mistake to think of the TPP as a single treaty. In reality there
are three conjoined mega-agreements, the TiSA, the TPP and the TTIP,
all of which strategically assemble into a grand unified treaty,
partitioning the world into the west versus the rest. This “Great
Treaty” is descibed by the Pentagon as the economic core to the US
military’s “Asia Pivot”. The architects are aiming no lower than the arc
of history. The Great Treaty is taking shape in complete secrecy,
because along with its undebated geostrategic ambitions it locks into
place an aggressive new form of transnational corporatism for which
there is little public support.
Read the TPP Transparency for Healthcare Annex
here
Read the Analysis by Dr Deborah Gleeson (Australia) on TPP Transparency for Healthcare Annex
here
Read the Analysis by Professor Jane Kelsey (New Zealand) on TPP Transparency for Healthcare Annex
here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership
The June 2015 article in the New England Journal of Medicine – below-
summarized concerns about TPP´s impact on healthcare in developed and
less developed countries: an increased price of medical drugs due to
patent extensions, it claims, could threaten millions of lives,
extending “data exclusivity” provisions would “prevent drug regulatory
agencies like the Food and Drug Administration from registering a
generic version of a drug for a certain number of years”, the
international tribunals that can require corporations be paid
compensation for any lost profits found to result from a nation’s
regulations could interfere with domestic health policy.
June 2015: In the New England Journal of Medicines it is asked:
The Transpacific Partnership: is it bad for your health?
The New England Journal of Medicines June 10, 2015
Amy Kapczynski, J.D.
DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp1506158
International trade deals once focused primarily on tariffs. As a result, they had little direct effect on health, and health experts could reasonably leave their details to trade professionals. Not so today.
The full health implications of the TPP are hard to judge,
not only because its provisions are complex but also because the draft
text is a closely held secret. Even members of the U.S. Congress can see
it only if they agree not to talk publicly about it and if they leave
their pens and phones (and, until recently, their expert staffers) at
the door. But several key chapters have recently been leaked and reveal
that the TPP could have a substantial impact on health.
Groups including Médecins sans Frontières and Oxfam warn, for example,
that the agreement could threaten the lives of millions of people in
developing countries. The TPP could impose obligations on developing
countries that go far beyond any existing trade agreement. Indeed, some
proposals in the leaked IP chapter seem directly targeted against
innovative measures that developing countries have used to maximize the
use of low-cost generic medicines. Read the complete article
here
April 2015: Trade deal negotiations rumoured to be almost complete
The next meeting is scheduled for late May, 2015 and as always
we are told that the negotiations are almost complete. However, we are
aware that there are still many issues that have not been resolved. In
the last months Dr Debra Gleeson and colleagues have published a number
of articles that provide insight into what is going on behind those
closed doors.
‘The Industry framed the TPPA as contributing to the public good. The TPPA
was portrayed as redressing inequitable pharmaceutical policies, which limit
people
’s access to new medicines. Further, the TPPA was constructed as the
route to economic growth for the USA and ultimately for all TPPA countries,
through increased intellectual property protection for the pharmaceutical
industry. This framing obscured tensions between Industry interests and public
health goals. The Industry remained silent on the issue of affordability, a key
dimension of equitable pharmaceutical access. The use of rhetoric, such as
‘win-win outcomes
’ (for TPPA countries and the Industry), hid the vested
economic interests of the Industry in the TPPA. Understanding the Industry
’s
framing of issues can assist public health advocates in challenging prevailing
discourses and exposing vested interests.’
Read the whole Public Health Analysis of pharmaceutical industry statements about the TPPA
here
Vietnam: In Assessing the impact of alternative patent systems on the cost of health care: the TPPA and HIV treatment in Vietnam, presented by Moir, Tenni, Gleeson and Lopert in November 2014, the authors summarise
In the Trans Pacific
partnership Agreement (TPPA) negotiations, the United States has
proposed expanded patent protections that will likely impact the
affordability of medicines in TPPA partners. This includes
antiretroviral (ARV) medicines used in the treatment of HIV/AIDS.
Vietnam has the lowest GDP per capita (US$1,911 in 2013) of the 12
countries participating in the TPPA negotiations. Official estimates
suggest that in 2014 Vietnam had around 256,000 people living with HIV.
1 By
the end of 2013 antiretroviral (ARV) therapy was provided to 82,687
people – 68% of those meeting the clinical criteria for such medicines.
2 Read more here
The health impact on Australia assessment can be found
here and ‘What doctors should know about the TPPA’ from these authors can be found
here.
Trade deal health concerns
Nicole MacKee
https://www.mja.com.au/insight/2015/4/trade-deal-health-concerns
Monday, 9 February, 2015
KEY health bodies have called for greater
transparency in negotiation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement
to ensure Australians’ access to medicines and public health initiatives
are not adversely affected by the finer details of such a deal.
AMA vice president Dr Stephen Parnis said assurances made by the federal
government last year that it would not enter into an agreement that
would have negative effects on Australia’s health system were not
enough.
“There must be a greater degree of transparency; we can’t simply accept
assurances from the government that health won’t be compromised. The
specifics really matter here”, Dr Parnis told MJA InSight.
“This is not a naive concern. We have had recent experience where Big
Tobacco has attempted to roll back the plain paper packaging provisions;
where big pharmaceutical companies have taken measures to prolong
patents to maximise their profitability. These things do not necessarily
coincide with the public health interests of the Australian people and
that’s the beginning and end point for the AMA.”
The call comes as an online
MJA editorial highlights the
potential health ramifications of the Trans-Pacific Partnership
Agreement (TPPA), which takes in 12 Pacific rim countries, including
Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US, and is expected to be signed
this year.
(1)
Editorial coauthor Professor Sharon Friel, professor of health equity at the Australian National University, told
MJA InSight now
was the time to add “a strong public health voice” into the
negotiations because it would be too late once Australia was locked into
an agreement.
Professor Friel said the lack of transparency meant it was difficult to
know precisely how the TPPA would affect the nation’s health goals, but
leaked information and the content of other trade agreements indicated
several ways in which health policy could be undermined.
The editorial authors warned that intellectual property rules proposed
in the TPPA would enable pharmaceutical companies to extend patents and
prolong monopolies, which could result in cost blowouts in the
Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). They also raised concerns about
the potential inclusion of investor–state dispute settlement mechanisms,
which could see companies sue or threaten to sue governments over
public health policies that could impact their ability to market their
products in Australia.
A similar mechanism has been used by Philip Morris Asia to sue the Australian Government over plain tobacco packaging.
(2)
Professor Friel said such a mechanism could also contribute to
“regulatory chill”, where governments resisted implementing public
health strategies that could result in legal action.
Adjunct Professor Michael Moore, CEO of the Public Health Association of
Australia (PHAA) and vice president and president elect of the World
Federation of Public Health Associations, said while his organisation
had had many productive meetings with past and present federal
governments about the potential public health consequences of the TPPA,
the inability to view agreement drafts was frustrating.
“The reason it sticks in my craw, is that we know major industry, such
as pharmaceutical companies, are on the negotiating team for the US. So
certain industry players not only get to see what is in the agreement,
but get to play with the drafts. In these agreements there are issues of
principle, but the devil is going to be in the detail.”
Professor Moore said the PHAA had warned state and federal
governments that public health initiatives could be stymied by
provisions in the agreement. For example, Thailand’s proposal to put
pregnancy warning labels on alcohol had been challenged by several World
Trade Organization members, including Australia.
(3)
He said the matter would be raised at this week’s World Congress of
Public Health in India, which was expected to sign off on a call to
action in line with its 2012 pledge to “advocate for fair trade in all
commodities that affect human health”.
(4)
A spokeswoman for the federal Department of Health said Australia
would not accept an outcome on the TPPA that would adversely affect the
PBS or Australia’s health system more generally.
“The Australian Government will not sign up to any international
agreement that restricts Australia’s capacity to govern in its own
interest”, she said.
The parties had agreed to keep documents related to the negotiations,
including text, confidential, as was normal practice in trade
negotiations, the spokeswoman said, adding that she could not speculate
on the accuracy or otherwise of leaked documents.
She said the Department of Health worked closely with the Department of
Foreign Affairs and Trade on domestic health policy issues related to
trade negotiations. The Minister for Trade and Investment, Andrew Robb,
leads Australia’s participation in international free trade agreement
negotiations.
Late last week, Mr Robb announced that he believed agreement on the TPPA was weeks away.
(5)
1.
MJA 2015; Online 9 February
2.
Attorney-General’s Department: Tobacco plain packaging — investor–state arbitration
3.
Drug Alcohol Rev 2013; 32:5-10
4.
WFPHA: Declarations
5.
ABC Rural: 5 February 2015
Don’t Trade Away Our Health: Trans-Pacific Partnership and International Drug Price Fixing
Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Economics Laureate – The New York Times
Published on 2 February 2015 at https://www.transcend.org/tms/?p=53353
30 Jan 2015 – A secretive group met
behind closed doors in New York this week. What they decided may lead to
higher drug prices for you and hundreds of millions around the world.
Representatives from the United States
and 11 other Pacific Rim countries convened to decide the future of
their trade relations in the so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership
(T.P.P.). Powerful companies appear to have been given influence over
the proceedings, even as full access is withheld from many government
officials from the partnership countries.
Among the topics negotiators have
considered are some of the most contentious T.P.P. provisions — those
relating to intellectual property rights. And we’re not talking just
about music downloads and pirated DVDs. These rules could help big
pharmaceutical companies maintain or increase their monopoly profits on
brand-name drugs.
The secrecy of the T.P.P. negotiations
makes them maddeningly opaque and hard to discuss. But we can get a
pretty good idea of what’s happening, based on documents obtained by
WikiLeaks from past meetings (they began in 2010), what we know of
American influence in other trade agreements, and what others and myself
have gleaned from talking to negotiators. Trade agreements are
negotiated by the office of the United States Trade Representative,
supposedly on behalf of the American people. Historically, though, the
trade representative’s office has aligned itself with corporate
interests. If big pharmaceutical companies hold sway — as the leaked
documents indicate they do — the T.P.P. could block cheaper generic
drugs from the market. Big Pharma’s profits would rise, at the expense
of the health of patients and the budgets of consumers and governments.
There are two ways the office of the
trade representative can use the T.P.P. to maintain or raise drug prices
and profits. The first is to restrict competition from generics. It’s
axiomatic that more competition means lower prices. When companies have
to fight for customers, they end up cutting their prices. When a patent
expires, any company can enter the market with a generic version of a
drug. The differences in prices between brand-name and generic drugs are
mind- and budget-blowing. Just the availability of generics drives
prices down: In generics-friendly India, for example, Gilead Sciences,
which makes an effective hepatitis-C drug, recently announced that it
would sell the drug for a little more than 1 percent of the $84,000 it
charges here. Click here to read the complete article.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
- the dirtiest deal you have never heard of.
Between foreign corporations
suing our governments over public health measures and environmental
protection laws, higher pharmaceutical prices, and surveillance of
Australians’ internet usage, there’s a lot for citizens to be concerned
about.
January 26, 2015 – as further talks are about to begin, Australian activist group Get-Up launched this video. Click to watch – it is worth watching.
Dec 10, 2014. TPP talks resumed this week, with negotiators meeting in Washington, but no major breakthroughs are expected given this weekend’s elections in Japan.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/top/261351/tpp-talks-resume-ahead-of-japan-election
Assessing the Impact of Alternative Patent Systems on the
Cost of Health Care: The TPPA and HIV Treatment in Vietnam (November
2014)
Moir, H.V. J.,Tenni, B., Gleeson, D. and Lopert, R.,
(November 27, 2014). Asia-Pacific Innovation Conference, University of Technology Sydney, 27-29 November 2014.
http://ssrn.com/abstract=2536254
Abstract: In the Trans Pacific partnership Agreement (TPPA)
negotiations, the United States has proposed expanded patent protections
that will likely impact the affordability of medicines in TPPA
partners. This includes antiretroviral (ARV) medicines used in the
treatment of HIV and AIDS.
Vietnam has the lowest GDP per capita of the 12 countries participating
in the TPPA negotiations. Using the current Vietnamese patent regime as
our base case, we analyse the potential impact of alternative patent
regimes on access to ARVs in Vietnam. The two other scenarios
investigated are a patent regime making full use of TRIPS flexibilities,
and a regime based on the US proposals in the 2014 leaked draft of the
TPPA intellectual property chapter.
Using World Health Organization (WHO) treatment guidelines, we
identified the most commonly used chemical entities and combinations
used in the treatment of HIV. We examined patent data sets to discover
patents that had been registered for these medicines and used
information from examination of these patents to identify which might be
granted under alternative patent regimes. We then drew on the empirical
literature to estimate prices under the three patent scenarios.
The current ARV budget was used as a constraint, with the consequence
that the results focus on the impact of alternative patent regimes on
access to treatment.
Our results indicate 82% of the HIV population eligible for treatment
would receive ARVs under a full TRIPS flexibility scenario, while only
30% of Vietnam’s eligible HIV patients would have access to ARVs under
the US 2014 TPPA proposals – more than halving the proportion treated
compared to the current 68% receiving treatment. Similar price impacts
can be expected for other countries participating in the TPPA, though
these are less economically vulnerable.
MSF responds to second Wikileaks release of Trans-Pacific Partnership text October 16, 2014
https://www.msfaccess.org/content/msf-responds-second-wikileaks-release-trans-pacific-partnership-text
Today [Oct16, 2014] Wikileaks published a revised copy of the
intellectual property chapter from the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership
(TPP) negotiations: https://wikileaks.org/tpp-ip2/
The leaked document — dated May 2014- also discloses countries’ current
negotiating positions. Wikileaks had released an earlier version of the
IP chapter in November 2013.
A preliminary review of the text confirms MSF’s serious concerns about
the Agreement’s public health impact remain valid: some of the most
damaging intellectual property provisions remain in the text. Adopting
the text in its current form will negatively affect affordable access
to medicines and the health of millions of people across the
Asia-Pacific region.
Statement by Judit Rius Sanjuan, U.S. Manager and Legal Policy Advisor,
MSF Access Campaign:’ ‘Although we’d much prefer if negotiating
countries themselves abandoned the extreme secrecy that has
characterized these negotiations, MSF welcomes the leak of the revised
negotiating text as a means to facilitate an open, transparent
discussion about the health impacts of this agreement on MSF medical
operations and millions of patients in TPP countries and beyond.
‘The leaked text reveals that most of the more problematic provisions
are being pushed by the United States and Japan, while still being
opposed by the majority of the rest of negotiating countries. While the
Australian government continues to oppose many of the most problematic
provisions, we are concerned about Australian support for the U.S.
government’s push to mandate rules that facilitate secondary and
abusive patenting by pharmaceutical companies, which blocks more
affordable generic competition. As countries prepare for TPP
negotiations in Australia starting October 19, we once again urge all
countries to reject harmful intellectual property provisions that will
restrict access to medicines.’
Some of the most harmful provisions remaining in the text would:
– Limit countries’ ability to exercise rights confirmed in the 2001 Doha
Declaration, by restricting those rights to a specific list of
diseases and situations.
– Limit the capacity that countries have to restrict secondary patenting
and abusive patenting by requiring patents on ‘new uses or methods of
using a known product.’
– Restrict countries’ ability to include important public health
flexibilities in their own national laws, for example India’s Section
3(d) patent law which requires evidence of ‘enhanced efficacy’ before
additional patents can be granted on existing products.
– Restrict countries’ ability to use to the full the public health
flexibilities recognized in the TRIPS agreement, including compulsory
licenses and patent exceptions.
– Mandate that countries include TRIPS-plus measures in their national
laws, including patent linkage, patent term extensions and new
monopolies based on clinical data exclusivity, including for biological
vaccines and medicines, which have never before been included in a
US-led trade agreement.
More info:
http://www.msfaccess.org/tpp/
Joanna Keenan Press Officer
Médecins Sans Frontières – Access Campaign
E: joanna.keenan[at]geneva.msf.org
UNITAID report: The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement: Implications for Access to Medicines and Public Health
In March 2014 UNITAID published a 120 page report called
The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement: Implications for Access to Medicines and Public Health
that was prepared by Kajal Bhardwaj and Cecilia Oh, with support from
UNITAID. The authors state that responsibility for the interpretation
and use of the material lies with the reader. UNITAID commissioned this
report to identify proposed TPPA provisions that are likely to have
implications for public health and access to pharmaceutical products.
Find the full report
here
Malaysia must not give in to the USA on the TPPA
CAP calls for Malaysia to withdraw from the TPPA:
As President Obama arrived in Malaysia, 26 April, the
Consumers’ Association of Penang (CAP) reiterated
their call on the Prime Minister not to make any concessions on the
Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) being negotiated between
Malaysia, the USA and 10 other countries. This is imperative. It could
fundamentally impinge on the sovereign right of the country to make
regulation and policy such as intellectual property, investor-state
dispute settlement, government procurement, state-owned enterprises and
the environment. Read more
here
Malaysia: Anti-TPPA movement to come out with book on the controversial agreement entitled “TPPA: Malaysia is not for sale”
Source:
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/anti-tppa-movement-to-comeout-with-book-on-the-controversial-agreement#sthash.VdvccdgO.dpuf
10 July 2014
Malaysia’s anti-Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) movement is
putting out a book as part of its protest against the pact despite
confirmation from Putrajaya that Malaysia would go ahead with the
controversial Pacific Rim trade agreement.
“The government has said again that it is committed to the TPP
agreement. According to their latest statement, Malaysia will see the
trade deal through in our favour,” Nizam said in a statement today (July
10 2014).
“However, neither the government nor the Minister for International
Trade and Industry (Miti) Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed have ever mentioned
just what is being negotiated in detail.” See the complete statement
here
A Matter of Life and Death
By
Martin Khor
http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/03/matter-life-death/
GENEVA, Mar 9 2014
Martin Khor, executive director of the South Centre, warns that
negotiations on the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement are a matter of
life and death.
If you or some family members or friends suffer from cancer, hepatitis,
AIDS, asthma or other serious ailments, it’s worth your while to follow
the negotiations on the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement and other
similar bilateral trade agreements.
It’s really a matter of life and death. For the TPPA can cut off the
potential supply of cheaper generic medicines that can save lives,
especially when the original branded products are priced so sky-high
that very few can afford them.
Multinational companies have strongly opposed compulsory licenses or the
Indian-type laws that allow for patents only for genuine innovations.
This is where the TPPA comes in. Mainly at the insistence of the United
States, countries are being asked to accept standards of intellectual
property, that go beyond the rules of the WTO’s. Read more
here
Protecting the Health of Australians in the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement. February 17, 2014
Dr Deborah Gleeson, one of the authors of the brief, added:
“Some of the provisions proposed for the TPPA would increase the cost of
the PBS for the government and taxpayers. These costs could be passed
on to patients through higher costs for prescriptions. The brief shows
how increased medicine costs can lead to adverse outcomes such as poor
health outcomes, financial burdens and higher rates of hospitalisation.
Disadvantaged population groups and people with chronic illnesses bear
the brunt of these poor health outcomes.”
“Many provisions in the TPPA could also affect the ability of the
Australian Government to effectively tackle the harm caused by tobacco
and alcohol” said Dr Gleeson. “For example, the investor-state dispute
settlement mechanism, which the Government has said it is prepared to
negotiate for the TPPA, could result in more legal challenges like the
case already brought by Philip Morris Asia against Australia’s tobacco
plain packaging laws.”
“The Public Health Association of Australia, together with many other
NGOs, urges the Government to ensure that no provisions are adopted in
the TPPA that would negatively impact the health of Australians” said Mr
Moore. Read
more
Australian Petition
May 19, 2014, the fight against the Trans Pacific-Partnership (TPP) went
right to the doorstep of Australia’s democratic representatives
in Canberra. A petition with 1.8 million signatures from collaborating
organisations accompanied an explanatory letter calling for the TPP to
be made public. The signatories believe the need to open democracy has
never been more urgent.
The letter highlighted the Public Health costs of the TPP:
– Proposals for extended patents on medicines would mean higher
prices for new medicines for longer in Australia and would have even
more severe impacts in developing countries.
– Other proposals in the agreement to limit the ability of governments
to regulate medicine prices would undermine our Pharmaceutical Benefits
Scheme (PBS), increasing costs to government and leading to pressure for
higher prices at the chemist.
– Proposals for restricting government regulation of food, alcohol and
tobacco labelling could reduce the policy space to adopt effective
public health policies in the future.
A recent
Health Impact Study of the TPP conducted by health academics from seven
universities showed that these costs to public health could outweigh any economic benefits for Australia.
Read the whole letter and see the signatory organisations
here
President Barack Obama has the authority
to fast-track the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Whether he’ll
actually be able to use this power could be determined this week in
Hawaii.
