Latest Intellectual Property Chapter Of TPP Agreement Leaked: Would Be A Disaster For Public Health

[grahamhgreen]

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141016/05300128842/latest-intellectual-property-chapter-tpp-agreement-leaked-would-be-disaster-public-health.shtml

Large brand-name drug firms want to use the TPP to impose rules throughout Asia that will raise prices on medicine purchases for consumers and governments, and be in effect for the next several decades. With billions at stake, Big Pharma wants the TPP to be a road map for rules that will govern Pacific Rim economies for the next several decades.

A U.S. proposal in the text – to provide long automatic monopolies for biotech drugs or biologics, which includes most new treatments for cancer – contradicts the policies included in recent White House budgets and if adopted would undermine key cost savings touted by the administration. The past budgets have included a specific pledge to shorten the same monopoly periods so as to reduce cost burdens on Medicare and Medicaid.

If the TPP is ratified with this U.S.-proposed provision included, Congress would be unable to reduce monopoly periods without risking significant penalties and investor-state arbitration.

[woo me with science]

1. Well, well, well. Lying and publicizing good intentions in the budget,

while working behind the scenes to do exactly the opposite.

This is your government corrupted by corporate money.

Good fucking god, we are bought and sold.

[grahamhgreen]

3. Disturbing, isn't it?

[woo me with science]

4. The stuff of nightmares.

Only it's completely real, and brought to us by the corporate criminals and liars who claim to represent us.

This needs to stay on top. This one, too:

WikiLeaks/Open Med: Leaked Draft Confirms TPP Will Censor Internet, Stifle Free Expression Worldwide
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025675523

[woo me with science]

5. Kick. This needs to stay on top, too.

This is your government on corporate money.

[grahamhgreen]

7. You're the best, Woo;)

[woo me with science]

9. You put the unvarnished truth about what we're dealing with,

even in our own party, right in people's faces.

I deeply appreciate that.

We can't afford to pretend anymore.

THANK YOU!

[grahamhgreen]

13. It's our party, and I'll cry if I want to;)

[Marr]

37. That seems to be standard procedure now.

Advertise one thing, work behind the scenes to make the opposite inevitable.

[woo me with science]

38. +10000 It's absolutely Orwellian. Say one thing. Do the opposite.

And, man, the lies have been coming fast and furious this year:

Months ago: Obama's heavily publicized speech about reining in military involvement...followed immediately by funding of the Gaza horror, a new war in Iraq, a new war in Syria, and a TRILLION DOLLAR new nuclear weapons escalation.

Then: the shameless public claim to support net neutrality, when his own appointees are enabling corporate takeover of the internet.

Then: that jaw-dropping public proclamation: “If you blow the whistle-You should be thanked & protected for doing the right thing," when we have all watched first-hand this administration's treatment of Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, and the vicious, systematic crackdown on whistleblowing in the federal government.

And now this. Stunning. Advertising and bragging about all these savings and limitations on monopoly and protections of citizens, and even putting them in the budget,....all the while working for exactly the opposite through the TPP. Good god.

And that's not even to mention the propaganda machines we now know about, aimed at the government's own citizens.

This is what we have come to in the United States of America. This is our lying, manipulative government on corporate money. We all live in Oceania now.

[BuelahWitch]

2. Kick n/t

[Enthusiast]

6. Kicked

and recommended a whole bunch!

[Fumesucker]

8. This Wiley cartoon seems appopriate

[grahamhgreen]

10. Very appropriate.

[ctsnowman]

12. lol Love it.

[bananas]

11. k&r nt

[antigop]

14. Trans-Pacific Partnership Would Decrease Access to Affordable Cancer Treatment

http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/trans-pacific-partnership-would-decrease-access-to-affordable-cancer-treatment

In its analysis of a US-proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) provision, Public Citizen found that the corporate profits of Big Pharma would be increased and protected at the expense of providing medical care to people with cancer:

Access to affordable cancer treatments in the U.S and 11 other countries would be delayed for years if terms revealed today in the leaked draft Intellectual Property Chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) were to go into effect, Public Citizen said. The text, obtained by WikiLeaks, analyzed in collaboration with Public Citizen and released today also shows worrying developments on other patent and copyright issues and explains in part why TPP talks remain deadlocked a month before President Barack Obama’s declared deadline for a deal.

The leak shows our government demanding rules that would lead to preventable suffering and death in Pacific Rim countries, while eliminating opportunities to ease financial hardship on American families and our health programs at home,” said Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen’s Global Access to Medicines Program. Public Citizen’s analysis and background information is available at http://www.citizen.org/tpp-ip-wikileaks.

Measures in the text, which advantage the patent-based pharmaceutical industry, face stiff opposition from most of the other TPP countries and health care advocates....

The patent protections on drugs and biotechnological advancement used to prolong life for individuals with cancer are being championed on behalf of the pharmaceutical and biotech industries by negotiators for the US government.

There are a plethora of compelling objections to the Trans-Pacific Partnership. That our elected government would support policies limiting the availability of cancer treatment in order to make the highly profitable pharmaceutical industry even more profitable is unconscionable.

[grahamhgreen]

18. The TPP will kill people.

[pa28]

15. Think it would be a good idea for Medicare to negotiate drug pricing?

If TPP passes you can forget it. We're handcuffed.

[wavesofeuphoria]

16. Fucking unbelievable!

More corporate slush over human beings.

Enough!

How is any of this aligned with any "democratic" platform?

[woo me with science]

17. The one in speeches, or the one they implement?

[antigop]

19. Hillary Clinton's Business Legacy at the State Department (leading part in drafting TPP)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1016&pid=67554

[antigop]

20. Hillary Clinton and Trade Deals: That “Giant Sucking Sound”

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016101761

[arthritisR_US]

21. I spoke earlier this week about the damage TPP would do to the drug

industry and its detrimental affect on the consumers (i.e.,patients) and was shot done in short order.

[Autumn]

22. I keep hearing how good it is and how important a new trade agreement is. Why do you hate Obama?

Rec, and that rec is not sarcasm.

[neverforget]

24. This thread from a couple days ago is very illuminating of

where some DUers defend the TPP.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025675523

[ucrdem]

23. How many years has this thing been on a "fast track" again?

Is this going to to be like the Iraq war, where the bashers kept right on bashing for years, oblivious to the fact that Obama had actually ended it in 2011?

[grahamhgreen]

25. Link?

[ucrdem]

30. Links:

1 - PP announced in 2009, first round, March 2010:

http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/blog/2010/march/ask-ambassador-trade-new-zealand-trans-pacific-partnership

2 - Joint Statement at the TPP Ministers Meeting in Singapore, May 2014:

http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/press-releases/2014/May/Joint-Statement-at-the-TPP-Ministers-Meeting-in-Singapore

No there there it seems, sinister insinuations notwithstanding. About what I'd expect from Assange.

[djean111]

28. It is not ON a fast track - Obama has REQUESTED Fast Track, and it looks like enough of us

mere lowly peons objected to it, that Congress did not give it to him.

Maybe biding his time until after 2014 elections. Maybe Hillary wants credit for it. Or not, depending on what her advisers tell her is most expedient.

What makes me snicker is that so many laws that exist or are being passed will be rendered moot when the Investor State is declared in charge of pretty much everything.
Hell, there could be an executive order allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices - which won't happen if/when the TPP is inflicted, and/or other "trade" agreements - because doing so would lower profits.

[ucrdem]

29. Evidently this thing has gone through 20+ rounds of negotiation since 2010

and was proposed in 2009, per the TPP website, which has loads of info on the negotiations, though not, it seems, this particular doc, which appears to be the minutes of a prep meeting of IP negotiators in advance of an official TTP ministers meeting in Singapore four days later. From what I gather, the results were disappointing, i.e. there wasn't much to announce at the Singapore meeting, links below.

So it hasn't gotten to Congress yet. It does appear from the TPP blog that Obama has urged negotiators to wrap things up, but if a quick scroll through the Ho Chi Minh doc is any indication, they are very far from reaching agreement on any number of thorny IP issues, and the likelihood from the looks of it is that they won't before 2016. So as usual WikiLies is yelling fire in a non-existent theater:
...........................
Links:

1 - PP announced in 2009, first round, March 2010:

http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/blog/2010/march/ask-ambassador-trade-new-zealand-trans-pacific-partnership

2 - Joint Statement at the TPP Ministers Meeting in Singapore, May 2014:

http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/press-releases/2014/May/Joint-Statement-at-the-TPP-Ministers-Meeting-in-Singapore

[djean111]

31. Are you saying that Wikileaks is lying about the content of the TPP?

I don't think so. And Allan Grayson had a look at some of it, had to sign non-disclosure papers, but said if we saw it, we would certainly be angry.
And if you are so sure the TPP is never going to happen - why would Obama be urging Congress to give him Fast Track. Oh, I do think they have renamed Fast Track "Trade Promotion Authority". Clever.

http://www.citizen.org/fast-track

Fast Track was an extreme and rarely-used procedure that empowered executive branch negotiators advised by large corporations to skirt Congress and the public and use "trade" agreements to rewrite policies that affect our daily lives – from the stability of our jobs to the safety of our food. Past "trade" deals rammed through Congress under Fast Track have empowered foreign corporations to attack domestic health and environmental policies, enabled pharmaceutical firms to raise medicine prices, and equipped banks with a tool to roll back financial regulation.

(snip)

Fast Track has only been used 16 times in the history of our nation, often to enact the most controversial of "trade" pacts, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Meanwhile, hundreds of less controversial U.S. trade agreements have been implemented without resort to Fast Track, showing that the extraordinary procedure is not needed to approve trade agreements.

Fast Track allowed the executive branch to unilaterally select partner countries for "trade" pacts, decide the agreements' contents, and then negotiate and sign the agreements — all before Congress had a vote on the matter. Normal congressional committee processes were forbidden, meaning that the executive branch was empowered to write lengthy legislation on its own with no review or amendments. These executive-authored bills altered wide swaths of U.S. law unrelated to trade – food safety, immigration visas, energy policy, medicine patents and more – to conform our domestic policies to each agreement's requirements. And, remarkably, Fast Track let the executive branch control Congress' voting schedule. Unlike any other legislation, both the House and Senate were required to vote on a Fast Tracked trade agreement within 90 days of the White House submitting it. No floor amendments were allowed and debate was limited.

(snip)

The whole thing reeks.

[ucrdem]

32. There isn't any TPP.

There are negotiations, and records of negotiations, but if you read the negotiator's notes on the very doc Wikileaks posted, you can see for yourself that there's no agreement and frankly not much prospect of one, on IP issues at least.

[djean111]

33. "on IP issues at least" - oh, there is lots of other stuff. There are 29 chapters to this thing.

Only FIVE have anything to do with trade.

http://www.exposethetpp.org/TPPImpactsYou.html

The public, Congress, and the press cannot see the draft TPP text.

More than 600 official corporate "trade advisors" have access.

The time to speak against the TPP is NOW, before whatever they are calling Fast Track these days gets passed in the middle of the night and Congress only gets to say yes or no, no changes.
NOW is the time to speak up, and at least be aware of what is going on, or as much as we can get from the secrecy that surrounds this piece of crap.

And yes, there will be a TPP, along with other re-engineered "trade" agreements. And yes, any politician championing the TPP does not get my vote. Something that affects so much of life is not a fucking pony.

[ucrdem]

36. Possibly but "fast track" at this point is a non-issue

because as yet there's no treaty to fast track.

[grahamhgreen]

34. No, I mean a link proving your claim "Obama... Ended it"

[ucrdem]

35. Dec. 15, 2011, NYT:

A Formal End
Published: December 15

It is a relief that the American role in the misguided Iraq war is finally over. It came to an official close on Thursday with an appropriately subdued ceremony in Baghdad. We mourn the nearly 4,500 American troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis who lost their lives.

{snip}

The Obama administration was unable to reach a new defense agreement with Baghdad that would have allowed several thousand American troops to stay behind as backup. We hope that the Iraqi Army will do better than expected. The administration must be prepared to offer limited help if the army does get into serious trouble.

President Obama, who first ran for office campaigning against the war, has never wavered on his promise to bring the troops home. The last few thousand will be out of Iraq by year’s end. {i.e. Dec. 31, and yes they left.} We celebrate their return. But this country must never forget the intolerable costs of a war started on arrogance and lies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/opinion/a-formal-end-to-the-iraq-war.html?_r=0

It ended with a whimper not a bang, but make no mistake, it ended, right on schedule, exactly as promised by that Hopey Changey guy from Chicago.

[JEB]

26. K&R for the original post and subsequent informative posts and links.

[highmindedhavi]

27. So our party passed both

NAFTA and TTP. I thought he was going to be different. Stupid me for believing.

[grahamhgreen]

40. Obama campaigned against NAFTA, and the Costly Trade Agreements.

[woo me with science]

39. kick

[woo me with science]

41. kick