[Ip-health] Activists “Die” At US Trade Office Demanding Halt to US-Thai Free Trade Agreem ent

[Mike Palmedo]

For Immediate
Release
January 11, 2005, 2:30pm

Activists “Die” At US Trade Office Demanding Halt to US-Thai Free Trade
Agreement - Claim Deal Would Undermine AIDS Treatment Programs

Contacts

Matthew Kavanagh,
Student Global AIDS Campaign,
202.486.2488,
mkavanagh@globaljusticenow.org

Asia Russell,
HealthGAP,
267.475.2645

Morrigan Phillips,
Mobilization for Global Justice,
509.991.69679

Washington, DC—While the US and Thai governments continue negotiations
on intellectual property provisions for a new Free Trade Agreement
today, activists converged on the US Trade Representative’s (USTR)
office to demand a halt to the negotiations in solidarity with thousands
of Thai activists demanding the same.  This afternoon dozens of
activists from AIDS and Global Justice organizations were symbolically
“killed” by US corporate greed and the US-Thai deal.  They were then put
into body bags and eulogized as they lay in front of the office of the
US Trade Representative, Robert Portman.

In Thailand today, the Bangkok daily The Nation, reports that nearly
10,000 protesters broke through police barricades surrounding the
Sheraton Hotel, where Thai and US negotiators were meeting. 500 of the
protesters, most living with HIV and AIDS, made their way to the meeting
rooms and brought negotiations on drug patenting and intellectual
property to an early close.

“We are fighting against drug patenting with our lives. I know I might
get arrested or injured in clashes with police, but we are all willing
to face that, because we have more to lose if the talks succeed,”
Nopparat Sa-ngiemjitr, from a Thai HIV/AIDS group, told The Nation.

In the United States, many organizations, as well as members of
congress, have voiced deep concern about the trade policies currently
being pushed by the USTR.  They argue that major pharmaceutical
corporations—an industry that makes the most profit each year in the US
economy—are driving US foreign policy in ways that hurt US and Thai
populations.  Highly successful AIDS treatment programs—including that
in Thailand—would be threatened by trade policies pushed by the US that
would block inexpensive generic drug production.

“This deal would put drug company profit ahead of people’s lives,” said
Morrigan Phillips of the Mobilization for Global Justice. “Corporate
intellectual property rights to essential medicines have no place in
Trade Agreements.  We demand that the US government put talks on hold
until the US and Thai public can see and debate the agreement.”

Today, activists from HealthGAP (Global Access Project), the
Mobilization for Global Justice, the Student Global AIDS Campaign,
Essential Action, and others came together at the USTR office to demand
the US put people over drug company profit.

--
Mike Palmedo
Research and Web
Consumer Project on Technology
T – 202-332-2670
F – 202-332-2673
mpalmedo@cptech.org