Waxman-Lee “Fair and Balanced” Trade Amendment Passes House
(Washington, DC) – The House unanimously approved an amendment introduced by Congressman Henry A.Waxman (D-Los Angeles) and Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) designed to increase attention to public health concerns in trade policy during debate last night on the Science-State- Justice-Commerce Appropriations bill.
“If the only formal advisors for our trade representative are representatives from the pharmaceutical industry, the policy will be biased toward industry and will overlook serious public health concerns,” said Lee. “This amendment will help make sure that our trade policy is both fair and balanced by ensuring that it is informed by advice from public health experts.”
Lee and Waxman’s amendment will block the use of Science-State-Justice-Commerce funds for Industry Trade Advisory Committees (ITACs) 3 and 15, which advise the U.S. Trade Representative on pharmaceutical and intellectual property negotiations, unless their membership is “fairly balanced” as required by the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
“The status quo is unacceptable," said Waxman. “The longer the USTR delays adding public health representatives to these panels, the more we need to be concerned about biased advice that is resulting in controversial trade policies.”
In December 2005, the Administration acknowledged the need for more diverse input on these issues. The International Trade Administration issued a Federal Register notice seeking nominations for public health and community health representatives to serve on ITACs 3 and 15. However, more than six months have passed, and despite receiving a number of applications and congressional inquiries, no appointments have been made.
According to Waxman and Lee, recent free trade agreements have reflected the influence of the pharmaceutical industry at the expense of public health concerns. The FTAs have extended patent terms and delayed generic competition - moves that increase profits for drug companies, but make it more difficult for governments to respond in the case of a public health crisis.
For example, Thailand has initiated a program of universal access to government-subsidized antiretroviral drugs that now reaches 70,000 of 170,000 Thai people living with HIV/AIDS. There is strong concern, however, that the future costs of expanding treatment with newer patented medicines will be prohibitive if provisions included in recent FTAs are included in the pending trade deal with Thailand.
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