WTO Cheap Drugs Bid Stymied After U.S. Balks
Fri Dec 20, 8:20 PM ET Add Science - Reuters to My Yahoo!


By Robert Evans

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States Friday effectively blocked agreement on a global pact to allow poor countries to buy cheap drugs to tackle epidemics such as AIDS (news - web sites), malaria and tuberculosis, diplomats said.



Envoys going into a late-night meeting at the World Trade Organization (news - web sites) (WTO) just an hour before the deadline for an accord on the highly sensitive issue said there would be no deal, but talks would probably be resumed in the New Year.


They said that after a day of negotiations and intensive consultations with capitals to bend WTO patent rules, word had come from Washington that it could not agree to a compromise text because it was "too flexible."


The United States felt it could be interpreted as meaning drug patents could be ignored on treatments for a wide range of diseases.


There was no immediate comment from U.S. officials in Geneva. But one non-governmental organization (NGO) campaigning for a deal accused major powers of being driven by the interests of their pharmaceutical firms rather than by humanitarian considerations.


The group, Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF), said that when talks resumed, the United States and others like Switzerland and the European Union (news - web sites) -- both of whom had accepted the draft -- should rethink their positions.


They must accept "a fair text that gives priority to people's health," MSF declared.


The failure, which could seriously rebound on the current Doha Round of overall free trade negotiations in the WTO, had been predicted earlier by several diplomats.


"I don't see the Americans giving in," said an Asian envoy. "They are under too much political pressure in Congress."


AFRICAN DISEASES ONLY NOT ACCEPTABLE


Envoys from other regions said a suggestion that an accord could specifically list only African diseases was not acceptable.


"We are developing countries too," said a negotiator from a small Latin American nation.


The outcome of the talks was likely to sour further the Doha Round atmosphere, already tense over problems in agriculture, where WTO countries have been officially described as "miles apart," and over failure to reach another agreement also by Friday on special treatment for poorer developing states.


Poorer countries wanted the drug deal to allow them to order copies of drugs developed by major pharmaceutical firms based in richer states from manufacturers in countries like India, Thailand and Brazil.


They saw an agreement as a touchstone of the sincerity of assurances from the big trading powers that they would emerge winners from the round.


Some diplomats from Africa, Asia and Latin America said that without a drugs agreement, they would not agree to compromise on other issues in the round whose success the big powers -- especially the United States -- see as vital to boost global business.


An outline drugs accord was first approved at a WTO ministerial conference in Doha, Qatar, 13 months ago, clearing the way for agreement to launch the new round aimed at lowering barriers to trade in goods and services.


But since then, efforts in several meetings between the key players have failed to hone down details into a pact pleasing all sides.