PRESS RELEASE
Another Voice Against Genocide Assails Obama’s TPP
June 24, 2015 (EIRNS)—Doctors Without Borders has issued a press release, assailing President Barack Obama and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), documenting that the treaty will cut off access to vital medicines for at least a half a billion people.
“TPP is a looming disaster for people who rely on access to affordable generic medicines, both internationally and in the United States. Despite this outcry, the US continues to work behind closed doors, without any input from the public, experts or elected officials, to aggressively push for intellectual property provisions that put the profits of pharmaceutical companies ahead of people’s health.”
Under the terms of the draft TPP, countries wold be forced to grant additional drug patents and extend existing monopolies on medicine beyond 20 years.
The spokesman for Doctors Without Borders’ Access Campaign, Rohit Malpani, warned, “The intellectual property provisions of the TPP completely undermine the Administration’s stated public health goals, including its own goal to achieve an AIDS-free generation. While President Obama speaks of expanding health care and tackling issues of income inequality at home, he is actively promoting a trade agreement that will exacerbate economic disparities and endanger people’s health care worldwide.”
The release noted that, while groups like Doctors Without Borders have been excluded from the negotiations, representatives of major pharmaceutical companies, Wall Street banks, and other vested interests have been fully brought in on the negotiations. In fact, Doctors Without Borders noted that they are relying on leaked copies of the working documents. Malpani concluded: “The TPP is the most damaging trade agreement we have ever seen in terms of access to medicines for poor people.”
