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Public Health At Risk: A Us Free Trade Agreement Could Threaten Access To Medicines In Thailand, Jakkrit Kuanpoth, Gawain Kripke, Stephanie Weinberg

Faculty of Law - Papers (Archive)

Even though the world faces the threat of potential new epidemics like avian influenza, the effects of trade rules on public health attract little attention. Governments recently reaffirmed their commitment to meet the Millennium Development Goals which include combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other major diseases, yet little attention is given to the implications of United States Free Trade Agreements (US FTAs) with developing countries such as Thailand, for access to affordable medicines to treat those diseases. These FTAs do much more than regulate tariffs for cross-border trade in goods and services: they change the rules of intellectual property protection in …