Trans-Pacific Partnership was written by corporations
From Campaign for America's Future
There was a reason corporations spent so much money on the last election and it wasn’t ideology. It wasn’t a gift. It was an investment.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a massive trade deal. It is being negotiated in secret, with citizens locked out. Big corporations and banks literally sit at the negotiating table. They spent millions on election contributions and lobbyists and they are getting their money's worth.
The pharmaceutical industry inserted patent rules into the TPP that will allow them to keep cheaper generics off the market for years by making minor changes to their drugs. This will hike industry profits, even as it prices the vulnerable out of drugs they need.
That's no exaggeration. Gleevec, a breakthrough drug against leukemia, cost $2,500 a month in the U.S. The patent holder was able to extend its patent by claiming a new use and raised the price to almost $8,000. That's $96,000 a year!
We have to stop this.
Right now, the president has lined up with Republican leaders in Congress and the corporate lobby to push for “fast track” authority that will grease the skids for the TPP. But they don’t have the votes...yet.
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approval by all participant countries to make any change, which makes it virtually un-fixable.
