{"id":641,"date":"2007-03-12T09:34:00","date_gmt":"2007-03-12T09:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godspolitics\/2007\/03\/elizabeth-palmberg-sick-of-corporate.html"},"modified":"2007-03-12T09:34:00","modified_gmt":"2007-03-12T09:34:00","slug":"elizabeth-palmberg-sick-of-corporate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/03\/elizabeth-palmberg-sick-of-corporate.html","title":{"rendered":"Elizabeth Palmberg: Sick of Corporate Trade"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" hspace=\"10\" src=\"https:\/\/www.inframedica.org\/images\/right\/pharmaceuticals.jpg\" align=\"right\" vspace=\"10\" \/>Who do you think should give nuts-and-bolts advice to help craft trade agreements that can cut Third World AIDS sufferers\u2019 ability to buy lifesaving generic medicines? a) Pharmaceutical corporations, b) other large corporations, or c) public health advocates, including religious groups.<\/p>\n<p>Trick question! There are no public health advocates on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ita.doc.gov\/itac\/committees\/chem.asp\">government-organized group that advises U.S. trade negotiators on medicines<\/a> &#8211; just folks from Pfizer, Monsanto, and other corporate interests (plus one environmental group). That setup &#8211; along with the \u201cfast track\u201d system, whereby the executive branch negotiates bad agreements and Congress is limited to a yes-or-no vote on them \u2013 are two reasons why recent U.S. trade agreements like CAFTA <a href=\"http:\/\/www.accessmed-msf.org\/prod\/publications.asp?scntid=2172004142465&amp;contenttype=PARA&amp;\">carve out new entitlements for Big Pharma at the expense of sick people in desperately poor countries.<\/a> And the health of the poor is just one of the ways in which CAFTA, and similar not-yet-approved pacts with Colombia and other countries, are bad products of a bad process.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.abcnews.go.com\/Politics\/wireStory?id=2932117\">Some in Congress are starting to speak out<\/a> about the problem, but a number of congressional leaders, including Sen. Max Baucus, seem to be suggesting that the soon-to-expire <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/03\/08\/AR2007030801523.html\">\u201cfast track\u201d can be renewed<\/a>, and that the disastrous course of the past few years can keep rolling on, with only a few changes.<\/p>\n<p>You can tell Congress that this just isn\u2019t good enough. As a first step, pick up the phone TODAY and tell your representatives about Tuesday\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tradejusticeusa.org\/iwg\/briefingactionalert.htm\">\u201cRethinking U.S. Trade Policy for the Common Good,\u201d<\/a> a briefing put together by an interfaith coalition that cares about the well-being of AIDS sufferers, the environment, and ordinary people in the U.S. and abroad.<\/p>\n<p>(And stay tuned for <em>Sojourners\u2019<\/em> May issue on trade justice to learn more about what you can do to help build a better world!)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Elizabeth Palmberg<\/strong> is an Assistant Editor for <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sojo.net\/\">Sojourners<\/a><\/em> magazine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Who do you think should give nuts-and-bolts advice to help craft trade agreements that can cut Third World AIDS sufferers\u2019 ability to buy lifesaving generic medicines? a) Pharmaceutical corporations, b) other large corporations, or c) public health advocates, including religious groups. Trick question! There are no public health advocates on the government-organized group that advises&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":379,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trade"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Elizabeth Palmberg: Sick of Corporate Trade - God&#039;s Politics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/03\/elizabeth-palmberg-sick-of-corporate.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Elizabeth Palmberg: Sick of Corporate Trade - God&#039;s Politics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Who do you think should give nuts-and-bolts advice to help craft trade agreements that can cut Third World AIDS sufferers\u2019 ability to buy lifesaving generic medicines? a) Pharmaceutical corporations, b) other large corporations, or c) public health advocates, including religious groups. 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Trick question! 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