Thank you very much for providing the Grandmothers Advocacy Network the opportunity to comment on the TPP.
We are a multipartisan network of volunteers from across Canada, who advocate in Canada and internationally for program and policy changes that can improve the lives of sub-Saharan African grandmothers and the vulnerable children and youth in their care.
We are going to be a little different, because we oppose this agreement—we strongly oppose it—because of the impact it will have on access to medicines worldwide. We also oppose this agreement because it puts corporate profits before people's lives.
We're here to speak up for the millions of people who need affordable medicines to treat diseases like AIDS in the world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. HIV continues to be a major global public health issue. It has claimed 34 million lives worldwide, and sub-Saharan Africa has the largest proportion of the world's infected, with 66% of new infections in this region.
At the moment, only 41% of HIV-positive adults are receiving antiretroviral treatment, and only 32% of children. I spent two years in Durban, South Africa, doing volunteer work in two hospitals, in 1999 and 2002. I saw first-hand the devastation of this disease. I saw people lying there just waiting to die, and the absolute hopelessness when there is no treatment.
I'm glad to say that in the years since, AIDS has gone from being a death sentence to being a chronic but treatable disease, thanks to the development of antiretroviral drugs and the reduction in price due to competition with generics. The cost of the medicines has actually declined. In 2000, it used to be $10,000 per patient, but now it has reduced to about $140 per patient per year.
We have two major concerns with the TPP. Our first concern is the intellectual property provisions, chapter 18, which would strengthen and prolong the private monopoly rights enjoyed by the pharmaceutical companies and in consequence delay the competition that brings medicine prices down.
It will do this in a variety of ways. One way is through expanding the scope of patents by “evergreening”. This means that companies can make a small modification to their drug, even if it has no real therapeutic benefit to the patient, or even add a new use for a known drug, and can extend their monopoly for years—maybe another 20 years on top of the original 20.
Also, for the first time they're requiring countries to give eight years of monopoly to makers of biologic drugs. These are some of the most up-and-coming drugs and some of the most expensive ones. Again, they're going to be unavailable to a majority of the world.
Third, there's extending patent linkage to all TPP countries. This allows patent drug companies to block generic drugs from being approved for marketing. This has already led to needless delays in generic production.
Our second concern is the investor-state dispute settlement, chapter 9, which would allow investors to sue sovereign nations if they believe their future profits are threatened by domestic laws or regulations. This would have extreme negative consequences for Canadians. Already under NAFTA Canada has had 36 challenges. It has been challenged way more than the U.S. and Mexico have. So far we've paid out $250 million, and that's not including the cost of actually opposing them.