Washington Makes Anti-India Push

maybardukLast Thursday the Energy and Commerce committee of the U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing entitled, “A Tangle of Trade Barriers: How India’s Industrial Policy is Hurting US Companies.” The hearing is part of a recent big business push which aims to support specific industry complaints against India by lumping them together, in order to claim that India is generally flouting international rules. The strategy could benefit Big Pharma by diverting attention away from access to medicines concerns.

We distributed a two-pager which references WTO rules and responds in brief form to some of the specific patent and pharmaceutical-related complaints that seem to be circulating on Capitol Hill, a few of which were raised in a pre-hearing memo circulated by the Republican majority. The Public Citizen two-pager, “India’s Patent System Plays by WTO Rules and Supports Global Health,” is available here:  tinyurl.com/nm3pc6l.

Thank you to Adriana Benedict and the PC staff for your work on this.

The testimony of hearing witnesses, which included representatives from Pfizer and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as well as Rohit Malpani of MSF, are available here.

Zach Carter wrote this article for Huffington Post.

 

 

Author

  • Peter Maybarduk

    Peter Maybarduk is Public Citizen's Global Access to Medicines Program Director. Maybarduk helps governments and civil society groups around the world use flexibilities in patent and trade rules to promote access to medicines for all. For example, Maybarduk's recent work with partners yielded major HIV/AIDS drug price reductions in Colombia and new state access to medicines policies enacted by the President of Ecuador. His work also focuses on protecting competition and access under intellectual property enforcement policies, and on appropriate policy responses to criminally adulterated or falsified medicines.

    Maybarduk has co-founded and coordinated several volunteer-run advocacy and assistance groups, including International Professional Partnerships for Sierra Leone (IPPSL), dedicated to supporting public sector development in one of the world's least developed countries. He studied law at the University of California at Berkeley and anthropology at the College of William and Mary. Maybarduk is a composer and performer of music, currently recording his third album with producer J. Robbins.

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