TPPA, bad for your health?
Is the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) the biggest threat to
our democracy in a generation, or is it really going to be everything the
government says it will be? As a nurse working in the New Zealand
health care system, this is an issue that will impact on the way healthcare
will be delivered for New Zealanders. It's important to look at the issues the
TPPA raises with a critical eye so we can confront the corporate agenda with an
informed argument.

The
stated goals of the TPPA are to improve the exchange of goods and services,
enhance global industrial vertical integration and enlarge the scope of
intellectual property protection. However from the leaks that have been made available, it is clearly much
more than this. The dictates of the agreement, in all but name a treaty, could, for the
most part, override national guidelines and regulations in the corporate arena
that pertain to health. The regulatory structure embedded in the TPPA withdraws
jurisdiction from national judicial systems and puts it in extraterritorial tribunals
designed to favor trade/corporate interests.
The fact that this
agreement is being negotiated in secret should raise alarm bells. Its content
will not be disclosed to the people of New Zealand and the New Zealand
Parliament until after it has been signed, by which time the terms will have
been agreed among the twelve participating countries. In addition, it is
understood that the United States of America
claims the right to decide whether New Zealand
has altered its laws to comply with the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement and
to require further changes to our laws if they have a different interpretation
of New Zealand’s
obligations.

"One particularly disturbing trend is the use of foreign investment agreements to handcuff governments and restrict their policy space... In my view, something is fundamentally wrong in this world when a corporation can challenge government policies introduced to protect the public from a product that kills."
In Canada, where they are subject to the terms and conditions of NAFTA
and other 'free trade' deals, all new health laws must be screened to make sure
they are compatible with trade agreements. In New
Zealand, action on plain packaging of cigarettes has
already been delayed; we're waiting because a tobacco company is suing Australia.
As it stands the
TPPA poses serious risks to global public health, particularly chronic,
non-communicable diseases. At greatest risk are national tobacco regulations
(such as plain packaging), regulations governing the emergence of generic drugs
and controls over food imports by transnational corporations.
The way in which the TPPA will affect generic drugs are through greater
corporate access to Pharmac. Pharmac is very successful in doing what it was
set up to do: making medicines more affordable. Pharmac is the national
medicines purchasing agency that has achieved the greatest success anywhere in
the world in balancing the health interests of people and communities against
the business interests of big medicines companies. Pharmac is under attack by
the pharmaceutical industry because it is successful, and the ‘Pharmac model’
is being adopted by other countries needing a better balance between business
and health interests. Pharmac purchases medicines for New Zealanders at prices
around half those achieved by Australia’s
medicines purchasing agency and around a third the price demanded in the US. Yes, this
is painful to the medicines industry but it means huge savings for the New Zealand
health sector.
With greater access to Pharmac, pressure on the nation's health budget
would escalate because of delayed introduction of generic medicines, longer
exclusive protections for expensive new cancer and immunosuppressant medicines
and weakening of Pharmac. Medicines would become less affordable overall.
Under the TPPA, we
could effectively forfeit our right to make sensible laws. Instead, foreign
investors would be given a powerful new lever to delay sound new health
regulations for their own commercial interests. Good public health policy should
respond to new evidence. Lead paint was used for many years before the health
risks to young children became undeniable; until recently synthetic
cannabis-like drugs were sold over the counter in NZ; and thalidomide was
initially sold without prescription to thousands of pregnant women before
leading to death and serious deformity in thousands of children. As evidence of
harm accumulated, governments brought in controls.

Concern about the
TPPA is not just a fringe Left concern, warnings are being sounded across the
spectrum. This was expressed succinctly by the Nobel Prize winning economist,
and former Chief Economist of The World Bank, Joseph Stiglitz, in the New York
Times earlier this year:
“There is a real risk that it (the TPP) will benefit the wealthiest sliver of the American and global elite at the expense of everyone else”“Corporations may profit (from the TPP), and it is even possible, though far from assured, that gross domestic product as conventionally measured will increase. But the well-being of ordinary citizens is likely to take a hit.”
The TPPA represents
the biggest corporate power grab in a generation and its implications for
health will be widely felt. Resistance to the TPPA needs to come from all
angles before it's too late. Talk to your workmates, inform yourself, attend
one of the many protest actions, organise one yourself. The fight isn't over.
Organise, Agitate,
Resist.
See you in the
streets.
Nico, SA.
Look for events happening nationwide this saturday as part of the international day of action here
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