Pharmaceutical, tobacco companies use trade deal to threaten public health legislation
US-based multinational pharmaceutical companies are lobbying for Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) provisions similar to those in the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement, which would reduce cost-effective government regulatory control of pharmaceuticals, threatening equitable access to medicines, according to an article in the Medical Journal of Australia.
The TPPA is a multilateral free trade agreement (now at the final stages of negotiation) aimed at increasing economic integration in the Asia–Pacific region.
Assoc Prof Thomas Faunce, ARC Future Fellow at the College of Law and College of Medicine, Biology and the Environment at the Australian National University, and co-author elucidated the likely content and impact of the upcoming TPPA negotiations and the policy implications they would have on Australia and the region’s public health and medicines policy.
Prof Faunce identified three issues that have been discussed during TPPA negotiations that would have significant public health and medicine policy implications for Australia:
- ways to approach regulatory coherence and transparency;
- how to benefit multinational and small–medium enterprises(SMEs); and
- multilateral investor–state dispute settlement.
Prof Faunce said that US-based multinational pharmaceutical companies were lobbying for TPPA provisions, which would limit the development of Australian generic medicine enterprises and restrict patient access to cheap, bioequivalent prescription drugs. He said that, US-base tobacco companies were also lobbying for provisions that would impede public health legislation such as plain packaging of cigarettes.
“Of particular concern is that proposed TPPA multilateral investor–state dispute settlement procedures would allow US corporations, as well as those of other nations, to obtain damages against Australian governments through international arbitral proceedings if their investments are impeded by Australian public health and environment protection legislation.” Prof Faunce said.
“This will severely impede the capacity of our public health regulators to apply the precautionary principle in relation to hazardous chemicals and products
“Rather than acceding to these demands Australia TPPA negotiators have a responsibility both to this nation and our developing neighbours to promote regulatory coherence on comparative cost-effectiveness research on new drugs, as well as stronger anti-monopoly and anti-fraud laws for the Australian pharmaceutical sector.”
The Medical Journal of Australia is a publication of the Australian Medical Association.
The statements or opinions that are expressed in the MJA reflect the views of the authors and do not represent the official policy of the AMA unless that is so stated.
CONTACT:Assoc Prof Thomas Faunce 0429 438 396 / 02 61253563
