US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2145

Public health groups on Thursday warned that “absurd” patent and data protection clauses pushed by U.S. lawmakers during the final negotiations of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in Maui, Hawaii could hike prices for life-saving drugs and stifle innovation.

Doctors Without Border (MSF) and the Generic Pharmaceutical Association are most concerned with measures such as the extension of intellectual property rights on drug patents and increased damages for the infringement of patents. They also worry that TPP will enshrine test data exclusivity for a new class of drugs, known as biologics, used in treatments against diseases such as cancer, and for which often no other remedies exist.

Judit Rius Sanjuan, a policy adviser at MSF, said a lengthy exclusivity window promoted by TPP would rob millions of people from affordable vaccines and other therapies against diseases that often affect the world’s poorest and eldest populations.

“Everyone will have to wait eight years to have access to biologics just to protect pharmaceutical companies,” she said. “That’s just unacceptable.”

Data exclusivity blocks companies from launching products based on previously generated data, forcing competitors to duplicate test results and setting back the development of drugs for many years, health experts say. The TPP’s data exclusivity provision, and other measures discussed by negotiators, violates existing trade agreements that safeguard the fair use of intellectual rights, according to MSF.

“The TPP is a precedent-setting blueprint for future trade deals that will deny countries their right to balance business interests with the public health needs of people — a right that is ingrained in international trade rules,” Rius Sanjuan said in a statement last week.

The United States accounts for more than half of all drugs currently being developed in TPP countries, according to a statement from Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which has aggressively pushed for a 12-year data protection timeframe and other restrictions within TPP to “promote the development and launch of new drugs.”

Manon Rass, director of the advocacy group Union for Affordable Cancer Treatment, said she feared the TPP agreement would increase prices for cancer drugs in the 11 partner countries and elsewhere, as the provisions risk becoming international standards.

On July 31 2015 23:00 Velr wrote:
You mean doesn't have to subsidize totally ridiculous roi of the pharma-giants?
Yeah, there is much frontloaded cost in that industry, but the average roi in that induestry is still what I would call fraud.

On August 01 2015 01:18 Paljas wrote:
People die, Capital grows.
Everything working as intended.

Advocates and inmates working to overhaul the criminal justice system will have to wait at least a little longer for congressional action.

The Republican leader of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Charles Grassley, said he won't hold a public event on sentencing reform proposals until after the August recess, as language is still being drafted by a bipartisan working group. And in the U.S. House, lawmakers and their aides will spend at least the next five weeks making adjustments to a sweeping bill sponsored by 40 Democrats and Republicans, sources told NPR Friday.

Expectations for movement on justice reform had been high, in part because of political support from libertarian-leaning Republicans, liberal Democrats and interest groups ranging from Koch Industries to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Earlier this week, Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a member of the GOP leadership team, suggested that a hearing and markup on proposals could be imminent.

"This seems to be another area where there's a lot of common ground, where a lot needs to be done, and I'm reassured by the bipartisan support we've seen, an optimism that we can get something important done," Cornyn said Tuesday.

But multiple sources from Capitol Hill, the executive branch and the advocacy community said concrete language on sentencing and criminal justice overhauls is still being hotly debated behind closed doors in both the Senate and the House. The Obama administration, including Deputy U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates, has been pressing to relax mandatory minimum sentences for certain drug crimes.

Yates discussed the idea last week at a bipartisan reform summit, telling the audience: "At its core, one of the basic problems with the mandatory minimum system is that it's based almost exclusively on one factor — drug quantity. And so we have a hard time distinguishing the cartel leader who needs to be in prison for a long time from the low-level mope who doesn't."

Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the highest-ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, went even farther at that event. "I consider ending mandatory minimums a moral calling," Leahy said, citing data that minorities are disproportionately subjected to those tough penalties.

On August 01 2015 04:57 WhiteDog wrote:
We mimicked the US in France by adding mandatory minimum sentences with desastrous effect (like going in prison for driving without a licence). Back then the US was leading the world into stupidity. Now nobody question mandatory minimum in France and the US want to go back on it ? Seems like now the US has decided to lead the world into reason. Rejoice.

On August 01 2015 05:23 Simberto wrote:
Probably because you don't have enough people in prison already, or the prison lobby needs new prisoners now that you reduce mandatory minimums.

On August 01 2015 04:57 WhiteDog wrote:
We mimicked the US in France by adding mandatory minimum sentences with desastrous effect (like going in prison for driving without a licence). Back then the US was leading the world into stupidity. Now nobody question mandatory minimum in France and the US want to go back on it ? Seems like now the US has decided to lead the world into reason. Rejoice.

On August 01 2015 05:35 GreenHorizons wrote:


Exactly. I just don't understand why it sounds like a good idea to conservatives?

On August 01 2015 06:06 xDaunt wrote:
How much more do you democrats need to see before you throw Hillary overboard?

On August 01 2015 11:11 screamingpalm wrote:
Only candidate that might get me voting Dem is O'Malley... better on environment and Middle East than Sanders. Also an even longer shot of getting the nomination lol.