[CTC] U.S. Trade Deficit with Korea Soars to Highest Point on Record under FTA

[Arthur Stamoulis]

-----Original Message-----
From: Oxfam media [mailto:media at oxfam.org.nz]
Sent: Monday, 4 March 2013 2:53 p.m.
To: Media Oxfam
Subject:

TPPA TALKS PUT PUBLIC HEALTH AT RISK

Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement to exacerbate Vietnam's access to
medicines crisis

The United States is again pursuing an important free trade agreement
that will lock in high drug prices out of poor people's reach - this
time across the Asia-Pacific region, warns international agency Oxfam.

Talks resume in Singapore this week for the Trans Pacific Partnership
Agreement (TPPA), an agreement currently being negotiated by New Zealand
and eight other countries (United States, Australia, Brunei Darussalam,
Chile, Malaysia, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam). The US is again
insisting countries must take on strict intellectual property protection
and drug pricing rules when they sign the deal.

Oxfam believes this will harm their ability to effectively negotiate
prices with the world's big drug companies. For a country like Vietnam
that already struggles to keep up with high medicine prices, the TPPA
could be devastating. This harm could become more widespread given the
TPPA has gone from being an agreement between nine OECD countries to now
being promoted as a global agreement that may include all APEC
countries, many of them at an early stage of economic development.

Oxfam spokesperson Rohit Malpani said: "The US proposals will have dire
health consequences across Asia and Latin America. Millions of people
are already struggling to find affordable medicines. These rules could
price medicines out of reach for future generations too."

In the past ten years, the US has consistently demanded in these trade
negotiations that poor countries should introduce measures that will
increase medicine prices.

In particular, the US wants rules that either interfere with basic,
WTO-sanctioned safeguards that allow a country to override patent
monopolies in order to protect public health, or rules that extend the
monopoly for a medicine beyond 20 years, and so delay cheaper generic
competition from entering the market.

Malpani said: "The US is putting the interests of the drug industry
above those of public health. It needs to reconsider this approach
because it undermines the sustainability of public health-care programs
and discredits trade itself as a tool for poverty reduction."

In Vietnam, government officials, experts and civil society groups are
already worried about the possible impact of the TPPA on medicine
prices. Patients in Vietnam already pay 72 per cent of their medicine
costs.

Thousands more people could be pushed into poverty in Vietnam. They will
have to choose between medicines and other basic necessities, or forego
treatment altogether. Many drugs for diseases including HIV and AIDS,
cancer and hepatitis B and C are already too expensive for most people.


The TPPA comes at a bad time for efforts to provide universal treatment
to HIV and AIDS. Up to 170,000 people still require basic treatment in
Vietnam and thousands more will soon need new, patented anti-retroviral
medicines as they will develop resistance to their current treatments.
The US proposals will increase these medicine costs too.

To make matters worse, the US - which currently finances more than half
of the country's HIV and AIDS treatment budget - may pull out of this
funding in 2015.

Malpani said: "At a time at which both the government and patients in
Vietnam are struggling to pay for medicines, a trade agreement that will
make medicines more expensive is unacceptable. The US should be
investing in programs that will foster a sustainable health system in
Vietnam, not driving thousands of patients into poverty and poor
health."

Apart from dire impacts on public health, the US is asking for other
rules in the TPPA that will have wider problems for developing
countries. "The TPPA would deny many developing countries the
flexibilities that they have been able to negotiate in the WTO. These
flexibilities are not only important for the development of their public
health, but more broadly domestic businesses and the overall economy,"
said Sarah Meads, Oxfam New Zealand's Senior Policy Advisor. .

A number of proposed provisions, including investor-state dispute
settlement, would undermine the powers of government to pursue
developmentally sound policies. The agreement is particularly difficult
for developing countries because they are still developing the
regulatory framework that they need in order to ensure that foreign
investment provides benefits to their economies and societies.


For further inquiry and copies of Oxfam's media briefing, please
contact:
Lynda Brendish
lynda.brendish at oxfam.org.nz
09 355 7413
021 052 9293

Note to editors: The media briefing "Putting public health at risk:
Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement to exacerbate Vietnam's access to
medicines crisis" is available at
http://www.oxfam.org.nz/reports/putting-public-health-risk


Oxfam New Zealand works with people around the world to end the
injustice of poverty.
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