The Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement: Implications for public health regulation and access to medicines

PHM Oz is concerned about proposed intellectual property and investment provisions in the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) that could undermine public health regulation and access to essential medicines.

The TPPA is a regional agreement currently being negotiated between Australia, the US, New Zealand, Chile, Singapore, Brunei, Peru, Vietnam and Malaysia.

Public health implications

Threats to Australia's Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme

In 2003-4, public health advocates worked hard (and mostly successfully) to protect our Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme in the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA). These hard won gains are now under threat.

Under the PBS, the wholesale price of medicines is kept low, enabling low retail prices for consumers. The Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee sets the prices through a process of comparison with cheaper generic medicines. In the US, the prices of common prescription medicines are three to ten times higher than they are in Australia.

Big pharmaceutical companies in the US argue that Australia's PBS prevents them from enjoying the full benefits of their intellectual property rights. The TPPA provides another opportunity for big pharma to ask for higher prices and to prevent new policies from being put in place to control prices. These change could see huge increases in the cost of the PBS, which would be passed on to consumers. This would have greatest impact on the most vulnerable groups in our population.

Threats to public health regulation, including tobacco plain packaging

Proposed expropriation and investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions in the TPPA could enable foreign corporations to sue governments over legislation that is deemed to harm their investments. Big Tobacco is likely to take advantage of such provisions to sue the Australian government over tobacco plain packaging legislation.

Campaign activities

PHM Oz has joined with many other civil society organisations in signing an open letter to Julia Gillard and Craig Emerson protesting the secrecy under which TPPA negotiations are being conducted, and calling for an open and transparent negotiation process.

Read the AFTINET Press Release

PHM Oz has also endorsed an AFTINET sign-on letter to the trade ministers of the TPPA negotiating countries. This letter urges the parties to consider excluding intellectual property and pharmaceuticals provisions from the TPPA, or at least to table alternatives to the TRIPS-plus model.

Further information

Read the AFTINET TPPA Campain Leaflet

Order the book 'No Ordinary Deal: Unmasking the Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement, edited by Jane Kelsey (2010). About the book: At a time when the global financial crisis has exposed deep flaws in the global free market, the US, Australia, New Zealand, Brunei, Chile, Peru and Vietnam are negotiating a free-trade agreement initiated by the US which resurrects the issues raised by the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement in 2004, including higher prices for Australian medicines, less local media content and deregulation of GE food. Jane Kelsey and her international team of expert commentators, including Dr Patricia Ranald, expose the myths of yet another neo-liberal adventure.

Faunce, T. A., & Townsend, R. (2011). The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement: challenges for Australian health and medical policies. MJA, 194(2), 83-86.

Tienhaara, K. & Faunce, T. (2011) Gillard must repel big tobacco’s latest attack. Canberra Times.

Gleeson, D. & Legge, D. (2011) [http://theconversation.edu.au/big-tobacco-v-australia-dangers-looming-in-the-trans-pacific-partnership-agreement-1943

Big Tobacco v Australia: dangers looming in the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement.] The Conversation, 7 July.

Public Citizen (2011) Briefing memo: Vietnam and the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement

Bilaterals.org (2011) US breaks UN AIDS summit commitment on access to treatment

Ranald, P. (2011) The experience of the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement: lessons for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement negotiations. Paper presented at the Stakeholders Forum, seventh round of Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, June 19, 2011, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.