June, 17 2020, 12:00am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Joe Karp-Sawey, media manager,Tel: +44 (0)7711 875 345,Email:,joe.karpsawey@globaljustice.org.uk
Pacific Trade Deal Is 'Corporate Powergrab', Say Campaigners, as UK Pledges to Join
Commenting on the Liz Truss's announcement today that Britain will seek to accede to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (known as TPP for short), Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now said:
WASHINGTON
Commenting on the Liz Truss's announcement today that Britain will seek to accede to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (known as TPP for short), Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now said:
"The Transpacific Partnership is an awful deal which fuelled massive protests in Chile and became so toxic that the US withdrew from it. Like its sister deal TTIP, it is a threat to our public services like the NHS, our food standards and our privacy online. The government can't kid us that this isn't a corporate powergrab because unlike the deal they're negotiating with Trump, the TPP exists already, and we can read the provisions for ourselves.
"We know that there is a corporate court system which can be used to bully governments out of taking public health or environmental action that big business doesn't like. We know that the 'right to regulate' provisions are not worth the paper they are written on. We know it contains one of the most extensive sets of privileges for Big Tech corporations which threaten to undermine our rights online.
"What will also strike many people as absurd is that the government seems to think an economic deal with countries thousands of miles away can make up for their failure to negotiate a deal with our biggest trading partners only 20 miles away. Nothing could better demonstrate the ideological crusade which this government has embarked on to strip away our protections, rights, and standards."
Campaigners are particularly concerned that the TPP would:
- Introduce a new corporate court system, allowing corporations from many countries to sue British governments for regulations and laws they dislike, and allowing British corporations to sue other governments in a similar manner
- Undermine food standards by treating food manufactured to lower standards as 'equivalent'
- Undermine public services, which will be subject to liberalisation disciplines unless specifically opted out, and will contain a 'ratchet' clause to expand liberalisation across services
- Includes a digital services chapter which would prevent governments from effectively regulating Big Tech corporations, allowing them to relocate your personal data and keep their source code secret from regulators
- Contain weak and unenforceable 'right to regulate' provisions
- Cover rules to give Big Pharma corporations greater powers to dictate the price of drugs they produce. Although currently suspended, these rules could be re-activated at a future time.
A full background briefing on the TPP is available here:
https://www.globaljustice.org.uk/sites/default/files/files/resources/tpp-briefing_2018_web.pdf
Global Justice Now is a democratic social justice organisation working as part of a global movement to challenge the powerful and create a more just and equal world. We mobilise people in the UK for change, and act in solidarity with those fighting injustice, particularly in the global south.
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'Make Polio Great Again': Alarm Over RFK Jr. Lawyer Who Targeted Vaccine
"So if you're wondering if Donald Trump is trying to kill your kids, yes, yes he is," said one critic.
Dec 13, 2024
Public health advocates, federal lawmakers, and other critics responded with alarm to The New York Timesreporting on Friday that an attorney helping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. select officials for the next Trump administration tried to get the U.S. regulators to revoke approval of the polio vaccine in 2022.
"The United States has been a leader in the global fight to eradicate polio, which is poised to become only the second disease in history to be eliminated from the face of the earth after smallpox," said Liza Barrie, Public Citizen's campaign director for global vaccines access. "Undermining polio vaccination efforts now risks reversing decades of progress and unraveling one of the greatest public health achievements of all time."
Public Citizen is among various organizations that have criticized President-elect Donald Trump's choice of Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, with the watchdog's co-president, Robert Weissman, saying that "he shouldn't be allowed in the building... let alone be placed in charge of the nation's public health agency."
Although Kennedy's nomination requires Senate confirmation, he is already speaking with candidates for top health positions, with help from Aaron Siri, an attorney who represented RFK Jr. during his own presidential campaign, the Times reported. Siri also represents the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) in petitions asking the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) "to withdraw or suspend approval of vaccines not only for polio, but also for hepatitis B."
According to the newspaper:
Mr. Siri is also representing ICAN in petitioning the FDA to "pause distribution" of 13 other vaccines, including combination products that cover tetanus, diphtheria, polio, and hepatitis A, until their makers disclose details about aluminum, an ingredient researchers have associated with a small increase in asthma cases.
Mr. Siri declined to be interviewed, but said all of his petitions were filed on behalf of clients. Katie Miller, a spokeswoman for Mr. Kennedy, said Mr. Siri has been advising Mr. Kennedy but has not discussed his petitions with any of the health nominees. She added, "Mr. Kennedy has long said that he wants transparency in vaccines and to give people choice."
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The Times pointed out that experts consider placebo-controlled trials that would deny some children polio shots unethical, because "you're substituting a theoretical risk for a real risk," as Dr. Paul A. Offit, a vaccine expert at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, explained. "The real risks are the diseases."
Ayman Chit, head of vaccines for North America at Sanofi, told the newspaper that development of the vaccine began in 1977, over 280 million people worldwide have received it, and there have been more than 300 studies, some with up to six months of follow-up.
Trump, who is less than six weeks out from returning to office, has sent mixed messages on vaccines in recent interviews.
Asked about RFK Jr.'s anti-vaccine record during a Time "Person of the Year" interview published Thursday, the president-elect said that "we're going to be able to do very serious testing" and certain vaccines could be made unavailable "if I think it's dangerous."
Trump toldNBC News last weekend: "Hey, look, I'm not against vaccines. The polio vaccine is the greatest thing. If somebody told me to get rid of the polio vaccine, they're going to have to work real hard to convince me. I think vaccines are—certain vaccines—are incredible. But maybe some aren't. And if they aren't, we have to find out."
Both comments generated concern—like the Friday reporting in the Times, which University of Alabama law professor and MSNBC columnist Joyce White Vance called "absolutely terrifying."
She was far from alone. HuffPost senior front page editor Philip Lewis said that "this is just so dangerous and ridiculous" while Zeteo founder Mehdi Hasan declared, "We are so—and I use this word advisedly—fucked."
Ryan Cooper, managing editor at The American Prospect, warned that "they want your kids dead."
Author and musician Mikel Jollett similarly said, "So if you're wondering if Donald Trump is trying to kill your kids, yes, yes he is."
Multiple critics altered Trump's campaign slogan to "Make Polio Great Again."
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) responded with a video on social media:
Without naming anyone, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a polio survivor, put out a lengthy statement on Friday.
"The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives and held out the promise of eradicating a terrible disease. Efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed—they're dangerous," he said in part. "Anyone seeking the Senate's consent to serve in the incoming administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts."
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Sandy Fonzo, whose son killed himself after being sentenced to juvenile detention, said in a statement: "I am shocked and I am hurt. Conahan's actions destroyed families, including mine, and my son's death is a tragic reminder of the consequences of his abuse of power."
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Others have called on Biden—who earlier this month pardoned his son Hunter Biden after promising he wouldn't—to grant clemency to people including Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier and environmental lawyer Steven Donziger.
"There's never going to be any closure for us."
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Reps. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), and Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) spearheaded the Thursday letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, with less than six weeks left in President Joe Biden's term.
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