Trans-Pacific Partnership raises concerns for public health: AMA

The authors, led by Dr Anne Marie Thow from the Menzies Centre for Health Policy at the University of Sydney, wrote that the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreent (TPPA) is currently under negotiation but not yet publicly available.
However, leaked documents show that an “investor-state dispute settlent mechanism is being negotiated for the TPPA”, enabling foreign investors – “including companies that manufacture, market and distribute health-damaging products” – to seek compensation from governments forpolicies that negatively affect th. For example, a similar arrangent allowed Philip Morris Asia to sue the Australian Government over plain tobacco packaging.
“One of the key concerns for doctors is access to medicines”, the authors said.
“Intellectual property rules proposed for the TPPA, if adopted, are likely to prolong monopolies over new medicines and delay the availability of cheaper generics. Resulting cost blowouts to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Sche would play out for patients in higher co-payments and reduced access to expensive new treatments, with disadvantaged patients bearing much of the burden.
“Changes to PBS processes also proposed for the TPPA could compound those probls by preventing effective price regulation and giving the pharmaceutical industry more say in PBS decision making.”
The global task of battling chronic non-communicable diseases could also be made more difficult by the TPPA, the authors said, because it would reduce the options available to government for regulating tobacco, alcohol and food.
“Proposed rules on transparency and regulatory coherence in the TPPA would enshrine the right of industry (both local and international) to contribute to national nutrition policy making”, they said.
“That works against public health efforts.”
Dr Thow and colleagues called on general practitioners to take part in the Australian Medical Association and Public Health Association of Australia’s campaigns to raise concerns about the TPPA.
“Doctors can help to protect public health by highlighting the effects of proposed provisions on patients, opposing health-damaging provisions, arguing for the agreent to be worded in ways that protect public health and seeking greater transparency in the TPPA negotiations.”