[Random-bits] in HuffPo: Bush, Mandelson to us: Drop Dead

[James Love]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-love/bush-mandelson-to-us-
dr_b_11759.html

December 6, 2005
James Love
Bush, Mandelson to us: Drop Dead

Today at 3 pm Geneva time, the WTO will meet to make an important
decision about the WTO agreement that deals with patents and generic
medicines. Although not reported in the US mainstream media, and
barely noted in the European, Australian or Canadian press, the
decision will contain a provision that is intended to prevent the
United States, the members of the European Community, and a few other
countries from getting access to generic medicines, even in cases
involving national emergencies, such as an avian flu pandemic.

Our trade officials will tell the WTO our countries will =93opt-out=94 of
a WTO agreement, as potential importers of generic medicines, no
matter what the circumstances are.
The push for the =93opt-out=94 was engineered by the CEOs of large
pharmaceutical companies, such as Pfzier CEO Hank, McKinnell, and
GSK=92s Jean-Pierre Garnier.

In the United States, the =93opt-out=94 was backed by President Bush=92s
advisor, Karl Rove, and top US trade official Bob Portman. Portman
refused to meet with public health groups to defend the decision.

News reporters for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall
Street Journal, Reuters and other major news outlets have not
reported on the opt-out issue, claiming =93it=92s too complex for readers
to understand.=94

In Europe, the opt-out was first engineered by former DG-Trade head
Pascal Lamy, and now by the current European Commission trade chief
Peter Mandelson. The opt-out is being quietly backed by UK political
leaders like Tony Blair or Gordon Brown, and top trade negotiators in
other European countries that host big drug companies, like France,
Sweden and German. Mandelson, like Portman, refused to meet with
public health groups to defend the opt-out decision.

The decision is the end of a longer negotiation over changes in the
WTO agreement involving intellectual property rights, known as the
TRIPS agreement. This began in 2001, with the adoption of the Doha
Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health. The most contentious dispute
in this resolution was unresolved in 2001. It concerned the need for
more liberal mechanisms to permit the export of generic medicines
that are manufactured under a compulsory license.

Unless generic companies can export medicines, they will not have
sufficient economies of scale to have efficient production. And
unless a country that lacks domestic suppliers of a generic drug can
find a foreign supplier, they won=92t be able to obtain cheap
medicines, when the patent owner cannot supply the market, or won=92t
charge reasonable prices.

Yesterday three democratic members of the House of Representatives,
Representatives Henry Waxman, Tom Allen and Sherrod Brown wrote to
Portman opposing the =93opt-out=94 decision.

Virtually every public health group following the WTO TRIPS issues
have condemned the agreement that will be reached today, not only on
the grounds of the US/EU =93opt-out,=94 but on the grounds that the
entire decision is needlessly complex, and designed to frustrate
rather the protect access to medicines.

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James Love, CPTech / www.cptech.org / mailto:james.love@cptech.org /
tel. +1.202.332.2670 / mobile +1.202.361.3040