Drug Lobby Got a Victory in Trade Pact Vote

NYT - CAFTA

The sidewalk between the drug industry's headquarters in Washington and the United States trade representative's office has been taking a pounding from the wingtips of industry lobbyists.

The work of these drug industry courtiers, who represent what is arguably Washington's biggest and wealthiest lobby, appears to have succeeded in the Central American Free Trade Agreement. The agreement would extend the monopolies of drug makers and, critics say, lead to higher drug prices for the mostly impoverished people of the six Latin American countries it covers.

The accord cleared the Senate on Thursday but faces a difficult floor vote in the House of Representatives this month. The agreement's pharmaceutical provisions are a sideshow in the Congressional debate, eclipsed by concerns of the textile and sugar industries and the labor unions that their interests would not be protected.

In contrast, the agreement's pharmaceutical provisions, which provide five years of market exclusivity to brand-name drugs, have been front and center in Guatemala, where poor AIDS patients have marched in the streets to protest.

The six countries affected by the pact "understand that the net effect of these pharmaceutical provisions will be to raise the price of medicine," said Frederick M. Abbott, a professor of international law at Florida State University. "The way they have to view it is that they're getting something out of the agreement that will give them a net trade benefit."

The problem with such an analysis, Professor Abbott said, is that the textile employers and agricultural producers gain, but the economic benefits may never flow down to the people who cannot afford medicines.