Thank you.
It's because of what we've seen. Because of this regime, countries have to guess at how many drugs they need when they go through the whole rigmarole of the application process. They're doing their best guesstimate. Yes, they can go back a second time to request more, but as we've seen in the case of Rwanda, that could be time-consuming, but it could also be larger than their original request.
This empowers them to have the capability to respond to those changing needs that would happen in the actual treatment, whether it be of HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, or whatever it is. With clause 4 not being adopted, it would be absolutely cruel to pass legislation in which, for example, just because they guessed wrong on the original application, they couldn't treat people with the increased drugs that are necessary.
The bill has already been pared down quite significantly with the defeat of clause 4. This is just at least a modest attempt to allow some flexibility. You have to remember that everybody still wants to be WTO compliant. The whole sinister set of stories and plots—of diversions and replicas and knock-offs, and that whole series of things—is unfounded; there's been no evidence of any of these things at all. At the very least, we could err on the side of flexibility, so that if their judgment is wrong when they apply for the number of medicines, there could be some flexibility to make sure that the shortfall can be made up at the end of the day, rather than making people and countries go through a whole new set of application processes.
It would also allow the generics to know that they could ramp up production, if necessary. It costs them to do this as well, and that's the worst thing: the pharmaceutical companies are going to get more profit, because they're actually getting royalties.