Thanks to Wikileaks:
Today, Wednesday 10 June 2015, WikiLeaks publishes the Healthcare Annex to the secret draft “Transparency” Chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), along with each country’s negotiating position. The Healthcare Annex seeks to regulate state schemes for medicines and medical devices. It forces healthcare authorities to give big pharmaceutical companies more information about national decisions on public access to medicine, and grants corporations greater powers to challenge decisions they perceive as harmful to their interests.
Expert policy analysis, published by WikiLeaks today, shows that the Annex appears to be designed to cripple New Zealand’s strong public healthcare programme and to inhibit the adoption of similar programmes in developing countries. The Annex will also tie the hands of the US Congress in its ability to pursue reforms of the Medicare programme. [my emphasis]
Doesn’t that just sound great for NZ? You can follow links from that page to a full press release, a PDF of the leaked Annex, and analysis by Professor Jane Kelsey. See further coverage:
Wikileaks: NZ health system could be ‘crippled’ by TPP
Controversial trade deal will ‘cripple’ NZ’s health system – Wikileaks
Latest TPPA leak shows Pharmac under threat
And for by far the best analysis and background, see as ever:
Gordon Campbell on the TPP revelations about Pharmac
It’s hard to imagine any advantage to the TPP that would make up for the obvious costs. And it’s impossible to have any confidence in negotiations that are being kept secret from we the people.
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