<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Gopal Dabade</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:drdabade@gmail.com">drdabade@gmail.com</a>></span><br><br><br><p style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:11.25pt;margin-left:0in;text-align:justify;line-height:15.75pt;background:white">
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/10/obamas-health-policy-global-health-reform_n_1659742.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular" target="_blank"><span style="color:windowtext">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/10/obamas-health-policy-global-health-reform_n_1659742.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular</span></a></p>
<b><span style="font-size:24.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Obama's
Global Health Policy Undercuts Reform At Home</span></b>

<p style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:11.25pt;margin-left:0in;text-align:justify;line-height:15.75pt;background:white"> </p>

<p style="margin:0in 0in 11.25pt;text-align:justify;line-height:15.75pt;background:none repeat scroll 0% 0% white">(excerpt)<br></p><p style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:11.25pt;margin-left:0in;text-align:justify;line-height:15.75pt;background:white">
WASHINGTON -- A
few hours after the Supreme Court upheld his signature health care legislation
last week, President Barack Obama approached a White House podium, addressed
the camera and declared that the nation's top justices had reaffirmed an
important guiding principle of his presidency.</p>

<p style="line-height:15.75pt;text-align:justify;margin:0in 0in 11.25pt;background-repeat:initial initial">"Here in America -- in the wealthiest nation on Earth --
no illness or accident should lead to any family's financial ruin," Obama
said.</p>

<p style="line-height:15.75pt;text-align:justify;margin:0in 0in 11.25pt;background-repeat:initial initial">That single sentence was a compelling invocation of nearly
every political theme Obama has presented on the campaign trail this year: To
live in a nation is to take part in a social contract; personal wealth does not
determine human dignity; decent people in a nation of means do not allow the
less fortunate to suffer needlessly.</p>

<p style="line-height:15.75pt;text-align:justify;margin:0in 0in 11.25pt;background-repeat:initial initial">But while the president has focused on lowering health care
costs at home, he has repeatedly sought to impose higher drug prices abroad.
For pharmaceutical companies, that has meant steady profits, but for the global
poor in desperate need of affordable drugs, those lofty prices are often a
matter of life and death.</p>

<p style="line-height:15.75pt;text-align:justify;margin:0in 0in 11.25pt;background-repeat:initial initial">Nevertheless, members of the Obama administration continue to
pursue policies around drug pricing that multiple United Nations groups, the
World Health Organization, human rights lawyers and patient advocates worldwide
decry.</p>

<p style="line-height:15.75pt;text-align:justify;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;background-repeat:initial initial">Two weeks ago, U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office Deputy Director Teresa Stanek Rea sparked an uproar among
public health experts when she<span> </span><a href="http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/Hearings%202012/hear_06272012.html" style="outline:none" target="_blank"><span style="color:windowtext;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in;text-decoration:none">testified before Congress</span></a><span> </span>on multiple administration strategies
to affect drug pricing abroad by using American international political muscle.
Her testimony focused on the Indian government’s efforts earlier this year to
create an affordable generic alternative to an expensive cancer drug called
Nexavar, which had been patented by Bayer AG, a multinational pharmaceutical
conglomerate best known in the United States for aspirin pills.</p>

<p style="line-height:15.75pt;text-align:justify;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;background-repeat:initial initial">Over the course of 70 minutes,
Rea<a href="http://judiciary.edgeboss.net/wmedia/judiciary/ip/ip06272012.wvx" style="outline:none" target="_blank"><span><span style="color:windowtext;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in;text-decoration:none"> </span></span><span style="color:windowtext;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in;text-decoration:none">repeatedly castigated</span></a><span> </span>India's government for approving the
generic drug, calling the move an "egregious" violation of World
Trade Organization treaties. India's decision, Rea said, "dismayed and
surprised" her, and she boasted about "personally" engaging
"various agencies of the Indian government" in efforts to overturn
it.</p>

<p style="line-height:15.75pt;text-align:justify;margin:0in 0in 11.25pt;background-repeat:initial initial">"This is unprecedented, really shocking testimony,"
says Judit Rius, the U.S. manager of Doctors Without Borders Access to
Medicines Campaign, an international humanitarian aid group that won the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1999. "It doesn't have any ground in international legal
norms. I've never really seen a U.S. government official misinforming Congress
in public like this. It's embarrassing for the White House."</p>

<p style="line-height:15.75pt;text-align:justify;margin:0in 0in 11.25pt;background-repeat:initial initial">The Rea hearing, which had all the trappings of an inconsequential
technocratic snooze fest, was almost completely ignored by American media --
drowned out by the furor over the Supreme Court’s historic health care ruling.
Only eight members of the 23-person House Subcommittee on Intellectual
Property, Competition and the Internet showed up and asked questions.</p>

<p style="line-height:15.75pt;text-align:justify;margin:0in 0in 11.25pt;background-repeat:initial initial">Thus far the Indian government has resisted American pressure
and continues to offer the generic alternative, which was approved in March
after several months of negotiations with Bayer.</p><br></div><br>