Gouging the Sick: Hightower on TPP [View all]

[eridani]

For an example of the reactionary reality, look at a couple of little favors this deal would do for Big Pharma.

First, it would extend the number of years that a pharmaceutical giant can keep a patent on its brand-name drugs. Not only would this artificially dump more monopoly profits into the coffers of drugmakers, it would simultaneously postpone competition from the makers of cheaper generic drugs — an especially dangerous delay for low-income people who are ill.

A second provision would restrict public regulation of drug prices by any of the 12 countries that are forging the accord. This would nix the people’s sovereign right to remedy price gouging by corporate profiteers that hold monopolies on life-saving medicines.

The folks pushing this snake oil assert that we should not bother our little heads with worry about its details.

But it’s filled with gotchas like these gifts to Big Pharma. They have nothing to do with trade — and everything to do with global elites secretively, deceitfully, and immorally agreeing among themselves to steal power from us.
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