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2009: White House: ACTA still “secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy”

Posted on by James Love

By James Love, on July 31st, 2009

On Thursday, July 30, 2009, the White House office of the United States Trade Representative denied release of 4 new proposals for text that were circulated in July to “all countries” in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations. The request was limited to documents that were prepared in the past 90 days for purpose of discussion at the July 2009 ACTA negotiating meeting held in Morocco.

USTR located 4 such documents, but denied the FOIA request under 5 USC 552(b)(1). The specific exception cited reads as follows:

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ACTA and changes in global norms for damages and injunctions (for enforcement of intellectual property)

Posted on by James Love

The Obama Administration, with the support of a Democrat-controlled U.S. Congress, is insisting the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations be conducted in secret. We know, from documents obtained in Europe and the summaries released in April 2009, that the draft ACTA has sections that deal with both injunctions and damages. We don’t have the current text. Continue Reading →

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Broken promise by President Obama on parallel trade in pharmaceuticals

Posted on by James Love

As candidates, almost all democrats have promised voters, in several elections, they will support parallel trade in pharmaceuticals from Canada and other high income countries. As elected officials, nothing happens. President Obama already has authority to permit imports of medicines, if he wanted to exercise it. But not only is the White House not fullfillinbg the promise to allow imports, it has promised the CEO of PhRMA and several big companies that they won’t allow parallel trade in the health reform bill.

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Howard Dean as a shill for BIO, on Biosimilars bill

Posted on by James Love

The July 20, 2009 issue of BioCentury has an extensive report on the “Biosimilar fire Drill.” It discusses in detail the lobbying by the Biotechnology Industry Association (BIO, bio.org) to defeat efforts by President Obama, OMB, the FTC, Representative Waxman, Senator Brown, AARP, Public Citizen, PIRG, Consumers Union, KEI, Essential Action, and others, to reform the regulation to biologic medicines, so there is more generic competition. Continue Reading →

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Civil Society letter to Members of the WHO Expert Working Group on R&D Financing

Posted on by Staff

Today nine NGOs sent a letter the WHO Expert Working Group on R&D Financing. The letter focuses on issues about transparency, conflicts of interest, and EWG outcomes. The whole EWG seems to be going very badly right now, in part because of the US government and much of Northern Europe is working hand and glove with the pharmaceutical industry, and partly because the Gates Foundation is protecting big pharma and seems to have an ideological attachment to strong IPR.

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US guts transparency clause in PAHO R&D resolution

Posted on by James Love

The PAHO negotiations on the R&D resolution has produced a new draft, which radically guts the provision on transparency of pharmaceutical industry economics.

The US opposed this language:

“(j) to develop, with input from Member States, a possible standard for disclosure of economic data for drug registered for sale, including disclosures of the costs of R&D, the prices of products, and the annual revenues from the sale of products.”

The US agreed to this language:

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