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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RMF who wrote (36566)	8/27/2009 9:40:05 AM
From: Peter Dierks	2 Recommendations Respond to of 71588

Here is a page with numerous examples of first world countries either issuing compulsory licenses or browbeating big pharma into giving away their drugs by threatening to do so: cptech.org More general: cptech.org

To: RMF who wrote (36566)	8/27/2009 12:59:49 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71588

IMO our misguided 'corporate welfare' leaning patent law provisions in this area are one of the main reasons the US pays 1/2 of all the world's spending on pharmaceuticals - despite having only 5% of the world's population. We let 'me-too' patents of dubious scientific validity be issued all the time... for such froo-frah as changing the color of the capsule, or changing one of the inert 'filler' ingredients that go into the pill. I've got absolutely no problem at all with any company that does innovative research and comes up with big improved treatments for disease or, dare we hope!... even an actual God's honest CURE for some condition (but that's far more rare then what most of our drug patents are issued for, which is more likely to be a marketing 'innovation', or a 'take-a-pill-a-day-to-control-but-not cure-this' financial annuity for the Big Pharma company....) In short, our system of patenting in this area is counter-productive and corrupted and serves the interests of corporate welfare far more then it does the interests of medicine of the nation's health....

To: RMF who wrote (36566)	8/27/2009 2:40:00 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Actually imposing the policy would be something the drug companies could go to the WTO (or to the US government to try to pressure Canada because of NAFTA, WTO, and other reasons). Making the threats, not so much (at least for the WTO). But the threats don't even have to be directly made. They are implicit in the combination of the powers of the Canadian (or any other) government combined with the long term willingness of Canada to use various measures to keep drug prices low. The Canadian national and provincial governments control the drug market in Canada. American drug companies can refuse to sell under the conditions the governments lay out, but if they do the governments can say "we won't let Canadians lose access to important drugs", and use that as a justification for compulsory licensing (at least for life saving drugs that don't have good alternatives). Under such circumstances the WTO might not try to do anything, or Canada might ignore it if they do (the WTO doesn't have a lot of direct power). The US government (with or without the support of the WTO), might try exercising a trade war, but might not, esp. if the Canadians where really firm on this issue, since a trade war would hurt us as well, and since Obama doesn't seem to want to be very confrontational with other countries, and since he seems to want to get drug prices down as well.