The Economic Times | November 20, 2001 | BYLINE: GAURI KAMATH
EVEN before the dust kicked up by the WTO meet at Doha settles down, top Indian drug companies have started their homework on countering the next possible roadblock to their ability to make and sell cheap medicines.
The Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance, a lobby of key Indian drug firms, has discovered potential loopholes in an American bill pending in the US House of Representatives, that they say could restrict the flexibilities available to developing countries to meet urgent health needs.
The bill in question is the Thomas Trade Promotion Authority Bill sponsored by Representative William Thomas. Introduced in early October, the bill having support of the Bush administration deals with trade agreements between the US and other nations. Among other things, it calls for accelerated implementation of Trips agreement, a contentious issue that rocked the latest WTO ministerial conference.
This is the opposite of the (US) offer to least-developed nations (at Doha) that they be allowed to defer full implementation of their Trips agreements until 2016 in order to meet urgent health needs, a letter written by the IPA to commerce minister Murasoli Maran, says.
The bill also calls for elimination of government measures such as price controls and reference pricing which deny full market access for US products, which according to the IPA would enable an inappropriate assault on the health systems of countries that use such methods to keep drugs affordable for their populations. India controls prices of essential drugs.
Our fear is the US will use the provisions of this bill to override the concessions that they made on Trips and public health in the Doha ministerial conference. We believe, like in textiles, this will be a great way out for the USTR to throw up its hands and say their powers of negotiation (on Trips and public health) had been taken away by the Congress, said D G Shah, secretary general, IPA.
The IPAs views are finding support from another quarter. Sixteen US Congressmen have voiced their concerns to Robert Zoellick, the United States trade representative.
(The bill) makes no mention of developing countries public health needs and thus fails to direct US negotiators to consider access to essential medicines in trade negotiations, the letter says.The Economic Times:
