Healthy Skepticism Library item: 18265

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Ed.
Whose interests does the World Trade Organization serve
Lancet 2003 Jan 25;
http://www.lancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(03)12360-4/fulltext

Abstract:

Those who support increasing access to medicines for the poor have lost, for now, to those more interested in protecting the patents owned by the US pharmaceutical industry. At a World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Geneva on Dec 20, 2002, the USA refused to support a draft plan to let developing countries override patent laws and import cheap generic drugs. The other WTO member countries accepted the proposals, after protracted negotiations, but the US delegation rejected them, saying that the proposed wording for the global deal failed to protect patents on drugs for non-infectious diseases such as asthma, diabetes, and obesity, which the delegation said would undermine research and development.