Over the last week Australian public health expert Dr Deborah Gleeson has given a series of lectures on the public health risks of the TPPA in Auckland and Wellington. For those who missed out, Deborah wrote an excellent op-ed outlining the risks the TPPA poses to PHARMAC in the New Zealand Herald. It didn’t take Big Pharma long to scramble a response, with the General Manager of Medicines New Zealand — NZ’s pharmaceutical company lobby — defending the gutting of PHARMAC under the TPPA on the basis that “there is nothing to fear in having a robust discussion about the best way to deliver the best health outcomes.” How we can have “robust discussion” when the TPPA is being negotiated in secrecy?
