Author: James Love

In 2000, President Clinton asked Donna Shalala, then the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), to write to Representative Jan Schakowsky. Schakowky had asked President Clinton to provide the World Health Organization with royalty free rights to health care products, for which the United States holds rights.

Schakowsky was pressing President Clinton to share its rights, under 35 USC 202(c)(4) — a federal statute that reserves certain rights in patents where the federal government provided funding for the invention.

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On July 19, I read a press release that annouced that:

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As the UN meets to discuss non-communicable diseases, one area of controversy is the effort by White House trade officials and the European Commissioner for Trade to block any mention in a Political Declaration of the November 14, 2001 WTO Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health.

This note explains why the Doha Declaration was important, and what USTR and DG-Trade are trying to do in the NCD resolution. I will start with a very quick history of the events that led to the 2001 WTO resolution.

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Michael W. Michalak, former Ambassador to Vietnam, pressured Vietnam on behalf of PhRMA.

Cables recently published by Wikileaks illustrate the degree to which the U.S. has been engaged in writing laws and training judges and government officials in Vietnam, on a wide range of pharmaceutical and intellectual property issues.

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USTR has released its new White Paper on Access to Medicine. Here is the press release. A copy of the White Paper is available here:

USTR_11sep2011_TPP_Trade_Goals_Medicines.pdf

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Last year the USPTO announced the award of $4 million in fy 2009 grants to advise developing couintries on intellectual property policies. The first set of grants were done under Arti Rai, then Administrator for External Affairs at USTPO. The grants went to a variety on pro-right owner groups, including those associated with Newt Gingrich and the Tea Party, and several supported by firms like Pfizer and Microsoft. Seven of the groups receiving the fy 2009 have in common the fact they received funding from either Microsoft or the Gates Foundation.

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September 6, 2011
KEI staff review of Wikileaks cables (/wikileaks)

Feb 28, 2003 | Turkey | Consulate Istanbul | Differences Among U.s. Firms Give Rise To New Association Of Research-based Pharmaceutical Companies
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This July 9, 2008 cable concerns the collaboration between the US government and the pharmaceutical industry to lobby Finland on the pricing of pharmaceutical drugs. The cable was written by Michael A Butler, then the Deputy Chief of Mission in Helsinki, and is worth a read. Among other things, the cable says :

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