Secret Global Trade Pact Could Limit Access To Generic Drugs...

Republicans have to pass it so you can know what is in it...

Via NY Times:

Mark Grayson, a spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, an industry trade group, said that the group was hopeful “that the House will pass the bill so it can get to the president’s desk.”

He declined to comment on the group’s position on the overall pact, saying it was still being negotiated. But he made clear that the pharmaceutical industry was hoping for what he called “strong” intellectual property provisions to be included in the trade pact.

He dismissed concerns that the pact could limit access to generic drugs, noting that the overwhelming majority of prescriptions filled in the United States were for generic medications, despite strong intellectual property laws in this country.

Generic drug industry officials hailed the vote, however.

Heather Bresch, the chief executive of Mylan, a generic drug maker, applauded the defeat on Friday by the House, saying it would give her more time to lobby against the trade pact.

She and other leaders in the generic drug industry have argued that the pact goes too far in protecting the patents of the brand-name drug industry and would block access to generic drugs around the world.

“I think it’s scary and dangerous that the president is looking for this kind of authority on a trade bill that I think has serious flaws in it,” she said. “It’s setting the global generic industry back 30 years.” Read more here...

Lame Duck: Democrats Block Obama's Trade Deal

The end is near...

Via Washington Times: 

Senate Democrats filibustered Tuesday to block the first major free-trade vote in years, dealing a blow to President Obama and GOP leaders who were pushing a deal in a rare show of bipartisanship, but who once again find themselves struggling with the political fringe.
Unlike the last few years’ worth of conservative objections, this time it was liberals who balked and pulled moderate Democrats with them, putting the brakes on the bipartisan push and imperiling the rest of the spring congressional agenda.
The White House said the filibuster was only a “procedural snafu” and urged GOP leaders in Congress to work it out differences with the moderate Democrats, who are insisting that any free trade legislation be coupled with other bills including customs enforcement, which contains a provision punishing other countries deemed guilty of manipulating their currencies for trade advantages.

Obama slams Democrats over trade deal

Popcorn?

Dingy Harry on Obama’s Trade Push: ‘Hell No...I Have Never Ever’ Supported Trade Deals

Another reason to avoid buying Chinese goods

I will never be accused of being a rabid environmentalist. However, I do believe pollution is a serious problem which must be controlled. I am not talking about the hysteria over carbon emissions. I am talking about real cancer causing pollutants. These chemicals are what environmentalists need to focus on. The Chinese, in their mad dash to flood the global economy with cheap and poorly made goods, failed to consider environmental impacts. They are paying a heavy price.

China "cancer village" pays ultimate price for growth
Wed Dec 10, 2008 10:27pm EST

By Emma Graham-Harrison and Vivi Lin

XIDITOU COUNTY, China (Reuters) - Once an isolated haven, the Chinese village of Liukuaizhuang is now a tainted hell, surrounded by scores of low-tech factories that are poisoning its water and air, and the health of many villagers.

One in fifty people there and in a neighboring hamlet have been diagnosed with cancer over the last decade, local residents say, well over ten times the national rate given in a health ministry survey earlier this year.

Many fear they are paying for the country's breathtaking economic expansion with their lives, as surrounding plants making rubber, chemicals and paints pour out health-damaging waste.

"They asked in the hospital whether my family had a history of cancer. I said: 'No, in the last three generations no one had it'," one villager told Reuters, pulling out his x-rays and doctor's diagnosis that he had lung cancer. "It must have a lot to do with the pollution here."

Three decades of reforms and opening up since 1978 have transformed China from a rigidly ideological backwater into the world's fourth largest economy, lifting millions out of poverty, but not without a price...

Full story here.