The WTO Reprise: 'We will not under any circumstances buy generic medications'

[rwx]

Today at 3 pm Geneva time, the WTO will meet to make an important decision about the WTO agreement that deals with patents and generic medicines. Although not reported in the US mainstream media, and barely noted in the European, Australian or Canadian press, the decision will contain a provision that is intended to prevent the United States, the members of the European Community, and a few other countries from getting access to generic medicines, even in cases involving national emergencies, such as an avian flu pandemic.

Our trade officials will tell the WTO our countries will “opt-out” of a WTO agreement, as potential importers of generic medicines, no matter what the circumstances are.

This is remarkably insane, anytime I see the phrases 'under any circumstances' or 'no matter what the circumstances' in regards to something like this, it makes me wonder how stupid people are. In this case, it seems that the WTO (and particularly the US/European delegations) are acting pretty stupidly, but didn't we already have this conversation a couple times?

The context to this debate (I'd guess), is that *other* countries are brokering a deal that would allow them to get medications from whatever source in an emergency. This would be useful, but not neccesarily for bird flu for several years, considering the main limitation to current tamiflu creation is that Tamiflu is made from the fruit of the star anise tree and Roche already buys 90% of the crop..

Article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-love/bush-mandelson-to-us-dr_b_11759.html

Comments

[ikkyu2.livejournal.com]

You're right - this is madness! Can't they see that a pandemic threatens the very shareholder value of the pharmaceutical companies themselves?

Oh, never mind, my pre-caffeine attempt at sarcasm falls flat.

[flavio.livejournal.com]

the capacity for human greed never fails to amaze me.

[antje23.livejournal.com]

This is infuriating. I like the last commentor's post about ideology...