SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
New Leak of Final TPP Text Confirms Attack on Freedom of Expression, Public Health
"The monopolist pharmaceutical industry has won a lot with the TPP, at the expense of people's health," says Public Citizen.
Oct 09, 2015
Offering a first glimpse of the secret 12-nation "trade" deal in its final form—and fodder for its growing ranks of opponents—WikiLeaks on Friday published the final negotiated text for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)'s Intellectual Property Rights chapter. The document confirms that the pro-corporate pact would harm freedom of expression by bolstering monopolies and injuring public health by blocking patient access to lifesaving medicines.
The document is dated October 5, the same day it was announced in Atlanta, Georgia, that the member states to the treaty had reached an accord after more than five years of negotiations.
Aside from the WikiLeaks publication, the vast majority of the mammoth deal's contents are still being withheld from the public--which a WikiLeaks press statement suggests is a strategic move by world leaders to forestall public criticism until after the Canadian election on October 19.
Initial analyses suggest that many of the chapter's more troubling provisions, such as broader patent and data protections that pharmaceutical companies use to delay generic competition, have remained since draft versions were leaked in 2014 and 2015.
Moreover, it codifies a crackdown on freedom of speech with rules allowing widespread internet censorship.
"The text of the TPP's intellectual property chapter confirms advocates' warnings that this deal poses a grave threat to global freedom of expression and basic access to things like medicine and information," said Evan Greer, campaign director for the digital rights group Fight for the Future. "The contents of the TPP's IP chapter were bought and paid for by Hollywood and the pharmaceutical industry before negotiations."
Noting that the leak comes the morning after pharmaceutical executives walked out of a White House meeting because they were "dissatisfied" that the deal did not provide them even greater monopoly rights, Public Citizen's Burcu Kilic scoffed: "The monopolist pharmaceutical industry has won a lot with the TPP, at the expense of people's health. They should stop crying crocodile tears."
In particular and with limited exceptions, as an analysis by Public Citizen notes (pdf), "all TPP countries--regardless of level of development, poverty or wealth--will be required to adopt the TPP's pharmaceutical IP rules."
So-called "transition periods," the analysis continues, "are too short to expect that countries will be substantially more able to absorb the rules' impact than they are today. There is little reason to believe that these rules would actually be good for the people residing in TPP countries, even after the transition periods allowed."
And even in the U.S., where similar rules are already in place, "the high prices of medicines--bolstered by TPP-style monopolistic protections--have led to treatment rationing, prescriptions going unfilled and severe budgetary strains," Public Citizen concludes.
"If the TPP is ratified, people in Pacific Rim countries would have to live by the rules in this leaked text," said Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen's Global Access to Medicines program.
Put simply, he added: "The TPP would cost lives."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Deirdre Fulton
Deirdre Fulton is a former Common Dreams senior editor and staff writer. Previously she worked as an editor and writer for the Portland Phoenix and the Boston Phoenix, where she was honored by the New England Press Association and the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. A Boston University graduate, Deirdre is a co-founder of the Maine-based Lorem Ipsum Theater Collective and the PortFringe theater festival. She writes young adult fiction in her spare time.
big pharmacorporate powerdemocracyfight for the futurefreedom of expressionmonopoliespharmaceutical industrypublic citizenpublic healthtpptradewikileakstrans-pacific partnership
Offering a first glimpse of the secret 12-nation "trade" deal in its final form—and fodder for its growing ranks of opponents—WikiLeaks on Friday published the final negotiated text for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)'s Intellectual Property Rights chapter. The document confirms that the pro-corporate pact would harm freedom of expression by bolstering monopolies and injuring public health by blocking patient access to lifesaving medicines.
The document is dated October 5, the same day it was announced in Atlanta, Georgia, that the member states to the treaty had reached an accord after more than five years of negotiations.
Aside from the WikiLeaks publication, the vast majority of the mammoth deal's contents are still being withheld from the public--which a WikiLeaks press statement suggests is a strategic move by world leaders to forestall public criticism until after the Canadian election on October 19.
Initial analyses suggest that many of the chapter's more troubling provisions, such as broader patent and data protections that pharmaceutical companies use to delay generic competition, have remained since draft versions were leaked in 2014 and 2015.
Moreover, it codifies a crackdown on freedom of speech with rules allowing widespread internet censorship.
"The text of the TPP's intellectual property chapter confirms advocates' warnings that this deal poses a grave threat to global freedom of expression and basic access to things like medicine and information," said Evan Greer, campaign director for the digital rights group Fight for the Future. "The contents of the TPP's IP chapter were bought and paid for by Hollywood and the pharmaceutical industry before negotiations."
Noting that the leak comes the morning after pharmaceutical executives walked out of a White House meeting because they were "dissatisfied" that the deal did not provide them even greater monopoly rights, Public Citizen's Burcu Kilic scoffed: "The monopolist pharmaceutical industry has won a lot with the TPP, at the expense of people's health. They should stop crying crocodile tears."
In particular and with limited exceptions, as an analysis by Public Citizen notes (pdf), "all TPP countries--regardless of level of development, poverty or wealth--will be required to adopt the TPP's pharmaceutical IP rules."
So-called "transition periods," the analysis continues, "are too short to expect that countries will be substantially more able to absorb the rules' impact than they are today. There is little reason to believe that these rules would actually be good for the people residing in TPP countries, even after the transition periods allowed."
And even in the U.S., where similar rules are already in place, "the high prices of medicines--bolstered by TPP-style monopolistic protections--have led to treatment rationing, prescriptions going unfilled and severe budgetary strains," Public Citizen concludes.
"If the TPP is ratified, people in Pacific Rim countries would have to live by the rules in this leaked text," said Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen's Global Access to Medicines program.
Put simply, he added: "The TPP would cost lives."
Deirdre Fulton
Deirdre Fulton is a former Common Dreams senior editor and staff writer. Previously she worked as an editor and writer for the Portland Phoenix and the Boston Phoenix, where she was honored by the New England Press Association and the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. A Boston University graduate, Deirdre is a co-founder of the Maine-based Lorem Ipsum Theater Collective and the PortFringe theater festival. She writes young adult fiction in her spare time.
Offering a first glimpse of the secret 12-nation "trade" deal in its final form—and fodder for its growing ranks of opponents—WikiLeaks on Friday published the final negotiated text for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)'s Intellectual Property Rights chapter. The document confirms that the pro-corporate pact would harm freedom of expression by bolstering monopolies and injuring public health by blocking patient access to lifesaving medicines.
The document is dated October 5, the same day it was announced in Atlanta, Georgia, that the member states to the treaty had reached an accord after more than five years of negotiations.
Aside from the WikiLeaks publication, the vast majority of the mammoth deal's contents are still being withheld from the public--which a WikiLeaks press statement suggests is a strategic move by world leaders to forestall public criticism until after the Canadian election on October 19.
Initial analyses suggest that many of the chapter's more troubling provisions, such as broader patent and data protections that pharmaceutical companies use to delay generic competition, have remained since draft versions were leaked in 2014 and 2015.
Moreover, it codifies a crackdown on freedom of speech with rules allowing widespread internet censorship.
"The text of the TPP's intellectual property chapter confirms advocates' warnings that this deal poses a grave threat to global freedom of expression and basic access to things like medicine and information," said Evan Greer, campaign director for the digital rights group Fight for the Future. "The contents of the TPP's IP chapter were bought and paid for by Hollywood and the pharmaceutical industry before negotiations."
Noting that the leak comes the morning after pharmaceutical executives walked out of a White House meeting because they were "dissatisfied" that the deal did not provide them even greater monopoly rights, Public Citizen's Burcu Kilic scoffed: "The monopolist pharmaceutical industry has won a lot with the TPP, at the expense of people's health. They should stop crying crocodile tears."
In particular and with limited exceptions, as an analysis by Public Citizen notes (pdf), "all TPP countries--regardless of level of development, poverty or wealth--will be required to adopt the TPP's pharmaceutical IP rules."
So-called "transition periods," the analysis continues, "are too short to expect that countries will be substantially more able to absorb the rules' impact than they are today. There is little reason to believe that these rules would actually be good for the people residing in TPP countries, even after the transition periods allowed."
And even in the U.S., where similar rules are already in place, "the high prices of medicines--bolstered by TPP-style monopolistic protections--have led to treatment rationing, prescriptions going unfilled and severe budgetary strains," Public Citizen concludes.
"If the TPP is ratified, people in Pacific Rim countries would have to live by the rules in this leaked text," said Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen's Global Access to Medicines program.
Put simply, he added: "The TPP would cost lives."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.