TPP leaks reveal that poor people in poor countries will die because of TPP

[brentspeak]

Unless, of course, they can afford premium, monopoly drug prices.

If, by some random chance, some corporate shill who claims to love poor people in other countries says otherwise, you'll know he/she/it is full of crap.

http://www.healthline.com/health-news/would-the-trans-partnership-boost-drug-prices-and-endanger-access-061215

Would the Trans-Pacific Partnership Boost Drug Prices and Endanger Access?

snip

Currently, a patent lasts for 20 years, giving drug companies ample time to reap the rewards of their drug research. After a patent expires, other companies are free to manufacture the same drug. That lowers prices, making medications more affordable. But the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) may change that system.

snip

In the case of pharmaceutical patents, the TPP appears to offer much stronger protections for drug companies than those set by TRIPS. Patents could be extended beyond 20 years, delaying the rate at which generics can come to market, for example. Poor countries would also have reduced ability to get brand-name drugs at generic costs. Medicare and other government programs around the world could also lose their bargaining power to get generic drugs at reasonable prices.

There are more provisions to beef up patents in ways that global health advocates fear will hurt patients. A wider range of drugs would be eligible for patents, including “me-too” drugs that don’t improve the effectiveness of existing drugs. Some surgical and diagnostic techniques could also be patented, meaning doctors could only use the methods if they paid the patent holder. Provisions that would protect data would also force drug manufacturers looking to introduce a generic drug to conduct their own safety and efficacy studies, which costs money and exposes patients to added risk.

“The TPP proposes to strengthen, lengthen, [and] broaden the pharmaceutical industry’s monopoly protections,” said Peter Maybarduk, director of the Global Access to Medicines Program at the U.S. good governance group Public Citizen. “That will limit generic competition and therefore access to affordable medicines for all the countries involved.” These concerns were echoed by Doctors Without Borders in a letter to President Obama, warning “unless certain damaging provisions are removed, the TPP has the potential to become the most harmful trade pact ever for access to medicines.”

[Rex]

1. No way! I was told here it would lead to world peace and 100 dollar an hour jobs!

That everyone would be holding hands and singing songs of praise and worship of the dollar bill.

[n2doc]

5. Yep, I remember those types of posts

"TPP will bring new guarantees of human rights to those member countries! Along with Ponies!"

I doubt the cheerleaders will bother to respond, and if they do, it will be either "we can't speculate until we see the final version" or "this has to be a lie, I believe my perfect President would never sell people out to corporations".

[roguevalley]

21. this is all on Obama. I wonder how he can live with it.

[Rex]

23. I don't understand how he thinks this is a good idea when he knows the GOP LOVES it!

However, I expect the POTUS to do something to the TPP...unexpected in the end. I think this is a trap for the GOP and they don't know it yet. I think he will kill it without worker protections (which failed to pass in Congress) and then laugh while watching the GOP implode.

Probably me just dreaming, but I will LMAO if he does it!

[Art_from_Ark]

64. Obama has gone on record saying that he is actually an "'80s Republican"

'80s Republican-- as in Ronald Reagan, and voodoo economics.

[hifiguy]

38. He has done some good things

Last edited Fri Jul 3, 2015, 04:43 PM - Edit history (1)

but on the big issues - health care, war, the "security state" and TPP - he has shown where his true allegiance lies - to Corporate Amerika. He saw how the Clintons were so lavishly rewarded for their services to the corporatists - NAFTA, the Telecom Act, bank deregulation - and he intends to capitalize on the same gravy train once he's out of office.

And I think he was a believer in horse-and-sparrow economics from the start. He told us that he's a "moderate republican" years ago.

[daleanime]

2. Duh....

[jwirr]

10. I like you answer: Duh..... Who in their right mind would believe that the multi-national

corporations would place profits above he wellbeing of the people?

[Divernan]

18. But . . But . .It's a gold standard! (S A R C A S M)

[jwirr]

25. Reaganism in a nutshell - greed and hate are good.

[appalachiablue]

56. But it's all to LIFT UP people around the world! Uh, wrong, put the poor DOWN in the ground.

[PatrickforO]

3. The very fact that people will die to preserve and increase profits shows us

the appalling nature of the neoliberal capitalist model, and its profound unsustainability. It cannot go on because at this point we are destroying the only planet we have to turn a profit.

We must decide as an electorate - is this OK, or do we want something fundamentally different.

That is why I'm supporting Sanders this time around.

[rhett o rick]

67. The billionaire oligarchs don't wish us to die, they just don't care if we do. Profits are their

only concern.

Vote Sen Sanders and not Goldman-Sachs.

[PatrickforO]

68. I'm with you there.

[AZ Progressive]

4. So the Pharmaceutical companies plan on what is effectively mass murder....

This should be reason alone for people to reject the corporate model of capitalism.

[Scuba]

72. Mass murder for profit is what the health insurance companies have been doing for decades.

[Hoyt]

6. Drug prices in poor countries are very low, TPP won't change that.

I get "concern," but it is not likely to happen.

[brentspeak]

7. No one on these forums is dumb enough to believe any of your tripe

Why do you continue to spew it?

[djean111]

8. I have asked that myself - the continued shilling is ridiculous.

[Elwood P Dowd]

9. His job is to push somebody's corporate agenda. He and 4 or 5 other DU TPPers have a list

endless talking points that read like they came from The Business Roundtable or The US Chamber of Commerce.

[djean111]

11. And they convince no one, and I will keep protesting, and I will never vote for anyone who voted for

Fast Track or the agreements. Or anyone who shilled for them. Got my list. And if Obama and Debbie Wasserman think that there is anything to change my mind, the Unions' mind, etc., then they are delusional and hoping we will just forget. Nope. In fact, seeing how the GOP and Obama were such BFFs over this, I have added the membership of the New Democrat Coalition to my list of No Votes. Granted, I can only not vote for Floridians and national office, but I will not be voting for any of them. And it is on them, not me.

[Hoyt]

16. And the junk you guys say sounds like me when I lived in a house full of students

who thought they had all the answers and Eugene McCarthy was going to end the war and set the world right.

[Rex]

26. You probably have that backwards, but we still love you.

[bread_and_roses]

31. oh right - you're the grownup & the entire labor/environmental/health advocacy/

& any and everyone else who actually works for the protection and advancement of ordinary people are just juvenile naifs.

Right

[Hoyt]

12. It's true. In any event, you guys have shown you don't give a dang about helping poor

countries progress. The only time you even pretend compassion is if some uninformed person thinks is might be used to undermine TPP.

[ananda]

17. Debate fallacies here, and faulty logic.

You could at least pretend to be literate and logical in your attacks on good people who can make no human sense out of an agreement clearly designed to help only the rich and corporate at the expense of poor and working class people.

For example, instead of falsely accusing a generic grouping of people called "you guys" of not giving a dang about helping the poor, you could instead tell us all the things you are doing to help them.

How have you been an activist and advocate for the poor? How are you going to help pay for the medication that millions of people won't be able to afford if big pharma gets its way according to the actual words of the treaty?

If your compassion is more than just pretense, show us exactly how that compassion will be turned into action on behalf of the poor.

I wont' hold my breath waiting for a decent or proper reply, though.

[Hoyt]

19. You obviously have not researched how cheap -- often free -- drugs are in foreign countries

and how some of them outright counterfeit them under government approved systems. We end up paying more here.

Besides, TPP isn't going to change much of that, if any.

I suggest you read up on drug prices in poor countries.

[Rex]

27. And you obviously cannot show one iota of proof to your claims and you never do.

But that is you to a T and why nobody listens to you. Proof? Nah, I understand.

[ananda]

48. OK, do this for me. Answer all my previous questions and then ...

Provide clear and incontrovertible evidence of your assertions.

I want to see several links for each assertion, as follows:

1. counterfeiting of drugs under government approved systems (whatever these are). Give comparative prices for what they pay and what we pay for specific drugs.

2. show links, with clear explanations of how TPP won't change that, after "that" has been incontrovertibly proven.

3. provide valid links on drug prices in poor countries. Include exactly what these drugs are and whether or not the drugs that are available match the drugs that are available here. It should be noted that not all drugs are available to everyone here. So we need a good idea of what exactly is available and to whom.

Don't forget to answer these questions, which you have sidestepped.

Tell us all the things you are doing to help poor people obtain necessities, including drugs.

How have you been an activist and advocate for the poor? How are you going to help pay for the medication that millions of people won't be able to afford if big pharma gets its way according to the actual words of the treaty?

If your compassion is more than just pretense, show us exactly how that compassion will be turned into action on behalf of the poor.


Thanks in advance.

[Hoyt]

50. Read up on India, and look up drug prices in 3rd World countries.

You have no evidence that the final TPP will do anything you say. Only blogs and such by people trying to gain readership.

Nor do I think you care about poor countries.

[ananda]

54. No, it's up to you to prove your assertions.

There is evidence that the TPP is harmful to the health interests of the poor.

Many links have been provided dealing with this subject.

If there is evidence to the contrary, it is up to you to provide it.

Saying read up on India and look up drug prices in 3rd world countries just won't cut it. Provide the links.

Here's what I think about you and your trolling here.

You're debate style is basically that of an ignorant, kneejerk reactionary whose aim is to disrupt decent conservation on a serious topic, that of the problems poor countries and poor people will have obtaining affordable medical care and drugs.

For example, medical doctors in the UK have spoken their concerns about the way a TTIP would negatively impact the NHS. Doctors without Borders have spoken their concern about the way the trade pact will affect the prices of drugs.

I would be inclined to take the concerns of medical professionals seriously, much more seriously than that of a kneejerk troll, if you get my drift.

And then there is that pesky little matter where you have arbitrarily accused people here of not having compassion. But when asked how your compassion works in real world activism, you have had ... not surprisingly really ... nothing to say.

Yet I know for a fact that many people here have shown in countless ways their compassion. They have shared it.

It's your turn to share the ways that your compassion is shown in the world.

[truedelphi]

55. We have counterfeit drugs here.

AT least twice i n the last fifteen years, I have had to switch pharmacies because the drug I was sold didn't do what it should have done, unless I started taking mega doses.

Safeway's pharmacy was one of the worst. Ever.

[arcane1]

20. Are you saying the information in the OP is lies?

If so, can you link to the truth that refutes the OP?

[Rex]

24. LOL! IKR!?

Funny how the supporters don't have anything to back up their words, just empty corporate rhetoric. I think if they weren't so lazy and tried to find something to help their argument, a few more people might buy what they are selling. As it stands they are a NO SALE.

[Hoyt]

29. I'm saying like most complicated issues, there are other views.

Drugs -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/critics-concerns-about-the-trans-pacific-partnership-are-overblown/2015/02/04/91dd4df2-abdc-11e4-9c91-e9d2f9fde644_story.html

David Ignatius -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-ignatius-a-breakthrough-on-trade/2015/01/29/6e2c376c-a806-11e4-a06b-9df2002b86a0_story.html

Ezra Klein -- http://www.vox.com/2015/3/13/8208017/obama-trans-pacific-partnership

[arcane1]

32. "Other Views" means you are choosing a side without evidence.

[Hoyt]

33. No, it means exactly what I said. I doubt you read any other views.

[arcane1]

39. "Views" are not facts.

In the absence of actual facts, I'm taking the position of justified skepticism.

[Hoyt]

40. Like you have presented facts. You guys talk about a "secretive" agreement, then tell us it's bad.

[arcane1]

42. I do not claim to have presented facts.

You must be thinking of someone else.

[Joe Turner]

53. By your headline I didn't have to look who posted it

You are such a predictable corporate shill. Yeah, sure, "not likely" going to happen is so reassuring. The corporations behind TPP have not spent billions to look out for the interests of poor countries. It's all about exploiting profitable opportunities no matter what the cost. Ya think maybe that's why this treaty has been kept secret from public?

[moonbeam23]

13. Not only in "poor countries"

people will die here as well

[Maedhros]

14. By the time they are through, the U.S. will be a "poor country." [n/t]

[hifiguy]

37. Worldwide feudalism under corporate seigneurs is the end game.

It has been for decades.

The common people have the right to sit down, the right to shut the fuck up, and the right to eat the crumbs that fall from the gilded tables of our rightful overlords.

I am left wondering only one thing - when the private "police" with unlimited powers to jail and summarily execute people will be authorized to enforce "corpoate rights." You know it is on the drawing board somewhere.

[Maedhros]

44. That drawing board is called the Trans Pacific Partnership. [n/t]

[Elwood P Dowd]

49. It should be called the TPCP -- Trans Pacific Corporate Plunder. (nm)

[smirkymonkey]

60. Perfect!

[angrychair]

15. very serious issues

With TPP and the other related trade pacts. I think that it is a good thing to get the word out and to shine the light on it. Secrets can only hide in the shadow.
That being said, inflammatory language, melodrama and talk of vast international conspiracies between dozens of governments and trans-national corporations, especially to kill people, is just going to shutdown any serious conversation about very real issues.

If all of us here on DU really do care about the welfare of people in poor countries than take these issues seriously and leave flame baiting to the trolls at FR.

[jwirr]

28. But it is a legacy issue - right?

[truedelphi]

57. Anyone who doesn't think that there indeed exist vast international conspiracies designed to

Profit only the very very rich, while endangering the economic and actual health of less wealthy human beings, really and truly needs to start educating themselves.

You could start with a very fine book, by "Confessions of an economic hit man," by John Perkins, as far as proper reading material for a beginner.

Link to what the book is about: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/confessions-of-an-economic-hit-man-john-perkins/1100395551?ean=9780452287082#productInfoTabs

Another eye-opening book would be George Seldes' "Eye witness to a century"

Here on DU, I refer about once every other year to Seldes' report on journalist Dorothy Thompson's revelation regarding the rigging of America's elections: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026800486

[1monster]

22. Surprise? Not. My husband needs an Rx that was $500 a month in December, 2014.

In January, 2015, the same drug with no modifications or reason that I can see, is $599. Medicare insurance brought that down to an affordable price for us, but we've hit the donut hole and it is no longer affordable. He has to have it, so we are digging, once again, into funds needed for other purposes.

The sad thing is that many people who desperately need that drug (and other drugs that are outrageously priced) who don't have insurance that covers those kinds of drug costs and who cannot cover the costs, are having to do without.

And we, the taxpayer, funded much of the research costs that big pharma is always saying they need to recoup.

[Hoyt]

30. They will definitely die or continue to live is squalor if you guys stop investments that

improve poor countries.

Be real, you guys have shown you don't care about poor countries progressing, as long as you think you'll make an extra nickel working for corporations here. Worse, you use the scare tactics that millions of US jobs will be outsourced overseas.

[arcane1]

41. Strawman. Saying no to the TPP is not the same as saying "stop investments "

And resorting to personal attacks means there is no argument to stand on.

[neverforget]

43. If you don't support the TPP, then you hate poor people

because the Republicans, corporations and the US Chamber love poor people....to exploit with cheap labor.

[arcane1]

45. "Trust McConnell and Boehner, not Warren, Reich, and Sanders!"

[Elwood P Dowd]

47. That was actually on the talking points list for one of the 1990's free trade deals.

The US Chamber and the corporate lobby had a list that all the politicians, pundits, and staffers went by. When all else fails, go to the racism charge and the helping the poor spiel.

[truedelphi]

59. Well done, arcane1.

Some people here really should have "Strawman" as their user id.

Nice to see such a person cut down to size, through simple but effective use of logic rules.

[bread_and_roses]

52. FFS, millions of US jobs HAVE BEEN OUTSOURCED overseas

so people are succumbing to "scare tactics?" How can you say this stuff with a straight face?

[Elwood P Dowd]

58. Well, when you're part of a group that says NAFTA created 22 million American jobs,

raised the standard of living for millions of American citizens, and created the economic boom under Clinton, that's they type stuff they say. Yes, it's true. Some in the group of TPP supporters have actually said all that, so don't laugh.

[neverforget]

62. I'd like to add "hyper regulation" to that too.

A poster said that the TPP is actually an example of hyper regulation I shit you not.

[Elwood P Dowd]

65. So TPP has hyper regulation AND hyper job creation along with

hyper wage increases. Are hyper orgasms next?

[J_J_]

34. This is Unacceptable!

Has anyone see the movie "The Girl in the Cafe" ?

How do we get through to them like she did ?

How do we publicly shame the leaders into doing the right thing....?

[CTBlueboy]

35. Histroy repeats itslef

Ask Bill Clinton and what he wanted to promote "free trade" and the effects it had on with Haitian farmers

[hifiguy]

36. Well, that is just tough shit.

Don't these ingrates know that the 1% is suffering terribly because they don't yet have every last penny in the world for themselves?

Go get a job you lazy assholes, and don't use being "sick" as an excuse.

needless to say.

[Omaha Steve]

46. K&R!

[orpupilofnature57]

51. And Hillary is for it, and wouldn't lift a finger to change it, the Truth .

[restorefreedom]

66. sadly, yes.n /t

[Pastiche423]

61. The TPP is...

TPTB's answer to Climate Change.

[raouldukelives]

63. Yep. Can't appease shareholders with words. They always get the pony. nt

[Wella]

69. Wealthy corporations sewing up their control of the world

That's about the size of it.

[davidpdx]

70. I'm worried that the cost of medication here in Korea could be effect by the TPP

even though the South Korea will not be part of the initial agreement. Some of the medications I am on are imported. We have universal health coverage here and if the cost of medication went up, so would the amount we pay each month.

[orpupilofnature57]

71. These concerns should be the priorities not 8000 % profit, perverse .

[lark]

73. For shame Obama

your legacy if forever tarnished by this horrible giveaway to your corporate funders. Yes, you expanded health care to more of the working poor here, but they won't be able to afford medicine in this country or any others, so in the end you are a net negative.

No hope, bad change.