<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">-----Original Message-----<br>From: Oxfam media [<a href="mailto:media@oxfam.org.nz">mailto:media@oxfam.org.nz</a>]<br>Sent: Monday, 4 March 2013 2:53 p.m.<br>To: Media Oxfam<br>Subject: <br><br>TPPA TALKS PUT PUBLIC HEALTH AT RISK<br><br>Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement to exacerbate Vietnam's access to<br>medicines crisis<br><br>The United States is again pursuing an important free trade agreement<br>that will lock in high drug prices out of poor people's reach - this<br>time across the Asia-Pacific region, warns international agency Oxfam. <br><br>Talks resume in Singapore this week for the Trans Pacific Partnership<br>Agreement (TPPA), an agreement currently being negotiated by New Zealand<br>and eight other countries (United States, Australia, Brunei Darussalam,<br>Chile, Malaysia, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam). The US is again<br>insisting countries must take on strict intellectual property protection<br>and drug pricing rules when they sign the deal. <br><br>Oxfam believes this will harm their ability to effectively negotiate<br>prices with the world's big drug companies. For a country like Vietnam<br>that already struggles to keep up with high medicine prices, the TPPA<br>could be devastating. This harm could become more widespread given the<br>TPPA has gone from being an agreement between nine OECD countries to now<br>being promoted as a global agreement that may include all APEC<br>countries, many of them at an early stage of economic development. <br><br>Oxfam spokesperson Rohit Malpani said: "The US proposals will have dire<br>health consequences across Asia and Latin America. Millions of people<br>are already struggling to find affordable medicines. These rules could<br>price medicines out of reach for future generations too." <br><br>In the past ten years, the US has consistently demanded in these trade<br>negotiations that poor countries should introduce measures that will<br>increase medicine prices. <br><br>In particular, the US wants rules that either interfere with basic,<br>WTO-sanctioned safeguards that allow a country to override patent<br>monopolies in order to protect public health, or rules that extend the<br>monopoly for a medicine beyond 20 years, and so delay cheaper generic<br>competition from entering the market. <br><br>Malpani said: "The US is putting the interests of the drug industry<br>above those of public health. It needs to reconsider this approach<br>because it undermines the sustainability of public health-care programs<br>and discredits trade itself as a tool for poverty reduction." <br><br>In Vietnam, government officials, experts and civil society groups are<br>already worried about the possible impact of the TPPA on medicine<br>prices. Patients in Vietnam already pay 72 per cent of their medicine<br>costs. <br><br>Thousands more people could be pushed into poverty in Vietnam. They will<br>have to choose between medicines and other basic necessities, or forego<br>treatment altogether. Many drugs for diseases including HIV and AIDS,<br>cancer and hepatitis B and C are already too expensive for most people.<br><br><br>The TPPA comes at a bad time for efforts to provide universal treatment<br>to HIV and AIDS. Up to 170,000 people still require basic treatment in<br>Vietnam and thousands more will soon need new, patented anti-retroviral<br>medicines as they will develop resistance to their current treatments.<br>The US proposals will increase these medicine costs too. <br><br>To make matters worse, the US - which currently finances more than half<br>of the country's HIV and AIDS treatment budget - may pull out of this<br>funding in 2015. <br><br>Malpani said: "At a time at which both the government and patients in<br>Vietnam are struggling to pay for medicines, a trade agreement that will<br>make medicines more expensive is unacceptable. The US should be<br>investing in programs that will foster a sustainable health system in<br>Vietnam, not driving thousands of patients into poverty and poor<br>health." <br><br>Apart from dire impacts on public health, the US is asking for other<br>rules in the TPPA that will have wider problems for developing<br>countries. "The TPPA would deny many developing countries the<br>flexibilities that they have been able to negotiate in the WTO. These<br>flexibilities are not only important for the development of their public<br>health, but more broadly domestic businesses and the overall economy,"<br>said Sarah Meads, Oxfam New Zealand's Senior Policy Advisor. .<br><br>A number of proposed provisions, including investor-state dispute<br>settlement, would undermine the powers of government to pursue<br>developmentally sound policies. The agreement is particularly difficult<br>for developing countries because they are still developing the<br>regulatory framework that they need in order to ensure that foreign<br>investment provides benefits to their economies and societies. <br><br><br>For further inquiry and copies of Oxfam's media briefing, please<br>contact: <br>Lynda Brendish<br><a href="mailto:lynda.brendish@oxfam.org.nz">lynda.brendish@oxfam.org.nz</a><br>09 355 7413<br>021 052 9293<br><br>Note to editors: The media briefing "Putting public health at risk:<br>Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement to exacerbate Vietnam's access to<br>medicines crisis" is available at<br><a href="http://www.oxfam.org.nz/reports/putting-public-health-risk">http://www.oxfam.org.nz/reports/putting-public-health-risk</a><br><br><br>Oxfam New Zealand works with people around the world to end the<br>injustice of poverty.</body></html>