[A-List] US imperialism: IPRs

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

US drug makers accused of bullying

Sarah Boseley, health editor
Thursday November 14, 2002
The Guardian

The US government and the giant pharmaceutical companies are continuing to
bully poor countries to tighten up their patent rules, hampering efforts to
obtain cheap medicines for people with diseases such as HIV/Aids, according
to a new report.

One year after the historic Doha declaration of the World Trade
Organisation, which said that poor countries could put their public health
needs before compliance with patent rules and buy or make cheap copies of
brand name drugs, Oxfam's review finds that US bullying is partly
responsible for the lack of so many of the vitally-needed medicines.

"The findings are damning," says the report. "Overall the number of
complaints against developing countries relating to patents and medicines
made by the pharmaceutical companies to the US government has not fallen;
nor has the number of complaints which the US government takes up."

Each year the US government produces a trade report known as Special 301, in
which the trade representative names countries which it considers to have
inadequate protection for patents. Being named is a warning of potential
trade sanctions.

The USTR named 27 countries in this year's Special 301 report. This is 66%
of those that the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America
complained about, compared with 61% last year, Oxfam found. The complaints
were mainly directed against those countries that manufacture cheap generic
versions of patented medicines.

"While many factors conspire to keep medicines out of reach of poor people,
it is now widely accepted that unduly restrictive patent protection raises
prices and therefore reduces access for poor people," says the report.

"Price discounts by companies can help but generic competition is the only
sustainable way of reducing prices and increasing access. This in turn
requires a more flexible application of patent law in developing countries.
And for this to happen, the US government and pharmaceutical companies must
stop their bullying."