American Medical Student Association

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement for Physicians-in-Training

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) is a multilateral free trade agreement being negotiated in secret between the United States and countries in the Asia-Pacific and South America including Canada and Mexico. According to the United States Trade Representative, this agreement will "set the standard for 21st-century trade agreements going forward". From leaked text, it is clear that the United States is pushing aggressive provisions that would limit access to life-saving generic medications through enhanced patent protections and data exclusivity favoring brand-name pharmaceutical companies. Other concerning provisions also threaten the principles of evidence-based medicine as practitioners will be forced to choose not necessarily the best treatments for their patients due to fear of patent infringement for diagnostic, therapeutic, and surgical methods. Additionally, as provisions for tobacco and alcohol are not excluded from the TPP, multinational companies will potentially be allowed to override national initiatives to curb access to such products and prevent millions of disease and death that these products cause.

If the TPP is finalized with these provisions included, millions of people around the world will not be able to access affordable medicines, receive the best treatment available, or be prevented through government initiatives from admirable goals such as becoming "smokefree" or curbing alcohol abuse.

SIGN AMSA's TPP PETITION!

AMSA TPP Advocacy

• Digital Rights and Health Experts Frustrated by New Rule to Shut Out Civil Society from TPP Negotiation Venue (Dec 2012)
• Letter from Presidents of Medical Student Organizations to TPP Negotiators (Dec 2012)
• Thailand TPP-Public Health Letter to the President (Nov 2012)
• Letter to Ron Kirk (Sept 2011)
• AMSA's TPP Webinar with Doctors Without Borders and Public Citizen (Aug 2012)

External TPP Resources

• Briar Mannering: Put NZ's health before interests of big pharma (The New Zealand Herald, Dec 6, 2012)
• Public Citizen's TPP Coverage
• Knowledge Ecology International
• MSF Report from International AIDS Conference - Trading Away Health: How the U.S.'s Intellectual Property Demands for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Threaten Access to Medicines (July 2012)
• MSF Brief - How the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Threatens Access to Medicines (Sept 2011)