Trade Deals leave poor Guatemalans at the mercy of American Big PHarma

[the_future_modernes]

The War over Drugs in Central America and Washington

And now we learn that drug manufacturers are exporting this lust for profits to our ‘trading partners’ abroad. While poor Americans are crippled by high drug costs, folks in Guatemala don’t get a public option, a town hall, or even a vote. Thanks to U.S. trade policies, they just get a bill for brand-name drugs that could cost as much as 850 percent more than a local generic version.
According to a study on the Central American Free Trade Agreement and Guatemala’s prescription drug market, intellectual property regulations have drastically limited access to critical drugs like insulin and HIV/AIDS treatments. Center for Policy Analysis on Trade and Health (CPATH) analyzed Guatemala’s pharmaceuticals market under CAFTA and found that drug companies have capitalized heavily on “data exclusivity” and patent rules that restrict the availability of generic medicines.
Authors Ellen Shaffer and Joseph Brenner warn:

Particularly alarming is that the rules not only keep affordable new generics from entering the market; they also function retroactively to remove existing medicines from the shelves. While patents already allow brand name drug manufacturers like Novartis and Merck to suppress competition from generic drug makers in the U.S. and abroad, data exclusivity is an additional bonus for this multi-billion dollar industry. Securing data exclusivity is a simple process for these companies, but it places insurmountable bureaucratic burdens on generics manufacturers.

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