I have never believed it fair for Americans to have to subsidize the medicines for the rest of the world, and this is what has been going on for years. It depends upon the medicine, of course, but it’s not uncommon for Americans to have to pay two or three times the prices that the same medicine costs outside of the US.

Neither is it necessarily the case that Americans are richer. They aren’t richer than Canadians, who get lower prices, and lets face it, there are wealthy Mexicans too. Plus, some Americans are pretty darn poor–and they can’t afford the expensive medicines either.

Also, while I’m as suspicious as the next person of the profits the drug companies make, it is true that their research and development costs are high. A friend of mine worked as a research scientist in one for 20 years, and during that time failed to discover a single viable medicine. There really are many more expensive failures than profitable successes.

And so far Americans have disprportionately shouldered the research and development costs for the rest of the world. Some of those cheap generic medicines wouldn’t exist if Americans hadn’t paid for them.

Though of course the flip side is the humanitarian angle. We do want medicines available cheaply for the people who need them. Moreover, there is the practical side to consider. The stronger the intellectual property rights granted to the drug companies, the greater the incentive for black market generic medicines to be manufactured and sold anyway.

The only solution is serious and fair-minded negotiations of treaties like this one, and the solution will never be a one-size-fits-all. It’s a matter of balancing different social goods.

I therefore believe that this article raises important issues that ought to be considered during treaty negotiations, but am not sure I agree with it. It’s too easy just to blame the “corporations” and the US government for selling out to them, while forgetting that these are the outfits that develop the medicines in the first place and Americans are currently overpaying the development costs.