[Random-bits] Korea FTA negotiations on medicines will harm us too

[James Love]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-love/korea-fta-negotiations- 
on_b_24929.html

July 12, 2006 The Huffington Post
James Love
Korea FTA negotiations on medicines will harm us too

Tens of thousands of persons are demonstrating in Korea today against  
a proposed trade agreement that no one in the United States knows  
about. One of the explicit objectives of the trade agreement is to  
raise the prices of medicines in Korea, and to create international  
norms that would make it difficult for governments to refuse to  
reimburse costly new medicines, negotiate lower prices, or override  
patents.

The negotiations on a new US Korea "Free Trade Agreement" (FTA) is  
only partly about lowering tariffs and other trade liberalization  
measures. The main things the US wants is for Koreans to pay high  
prices for medicines.

     (Stories and pictures of demonstrations against US/Korea FTA here,
     here, and here)

The current US/Korea/FTA negotiation follows an earlier and somewhat  
secret 1999 agreement with Korea that obligated Korea to pay at least  
the average price of 7 industrialized countries for innovative  
medicines. Because of this agreement, Korea now pays more than the US  
for some drugs for cancer and other severe illnesses. The US  
government followed the 1999 Korea agreement with provisions in trade  
agreements with Australia and Singapore that were designed to weaken  
national efforts to control drug prices, and make it much harder for  
governments to override strong patent protection.

This week the United States Trade Representative has sent a number of  
fairly young trade offiicals to Korea to demand huge changes in the  
Korea system for reimbursing medicines. In one July 11, 2006 report,  
Wendy Cutler, the head of the U.S. team at free trade talks with Korea:

----"criticized Korean plans to adopt an approved list for drugs  
available under Korea's national health insurance system. Saying she  
understood the challenges Korea faces in devising a health care  
policy as its population ages, she continued, "But we don't believe  
this proposed change in the Korean system toward a 'positive list'  
will achieve the objective that Korea has stated for itself. We  
believe the proposed system would end up discriminating against and  
limiting the access of Korean patients and doctors to most innovative  
drugs in the world."------

The message that Cutler is delivering, under our flag, is that the US  
wants Korean taxpayers to pay whatever prices pharmaceutical  
companies want. She is following up on earlier threats by US  
government officials, such as this February 7, 2001 US Commerce  
Secretary Don Evans letter, which quite famously said " The United  
States has considerable expertise and experience in health care  
financing matters," while complaining about efforts to link patient  
co-payments in any way to the prices or patent status of medicines.

These position are now aggressively pushed by the Bush  
Administration, but they have wide support in the US Congress, even  
among democrats -- and the 1999 US/Korea agreement was negotiated by  
Bill Clinton. Only a small number of US Congressman have bothered to  
look into these agreements.

But within the Bush Administration, there has been some questioning  
of these policies. (obtained via a CPTech FOIA request). In an  
October 16, 2003 note, Robert Armstrong, then Trade Officer for  
Japan, Korea and Oceania at the US Department of State, wrote "FDA  
and HSS have been involved in analyzing the PhRMA proposals and have  
found a number of their suggestions to be problematic from the  
standpoint of U.S. Domestic practice."

Earlier two other Department officials had raised similar points. On  
September 8, 2003, Bryant Trick had written his colleagues to note  
that: "once Congress passes a Medicare prescription drug benefit, you  
will have price controls and reimbursement guidelines for that. . .  
HMOs are also very active in this (one reason for their  
unpopularity), but since they are private, it is less of an issue."  
And Thomas Jung wrote a September 9, 2003 response reminding State  
officials that US States "are taking the same approach the ROKG is  
taking: containing costs by scrutinizing prescription drugs,  
particularly brand name drugs."

We are about to reap a bitter fruit from the Korea/FTA negotiations.  
Not only will we harm Koreans, but we will are building global norms  
that will make it impossible for the US to protect us from high drug  
prices.

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

"If everyone thinks the same: No one thinks."  Bill Walton