Free trade is a powerful force for improving the health of the poor around the world.
Unlike what activists claim to oppose free trade, a recent study (*) shows that open trade among nations is good for public health, particularly in countries developing. According to the study, free trade agreements have the same effect, and it is not restricting people's access to essential medicines.
The main points of this study are:
- is evidence that free trade generates economic growth and wealth, basic conditions for better public health. Growth and wealth allows better water and sewage, better health facilities and more technology, better pest control, better professionals, etc.
- Trade liberalization also promotes the exchange of knowledge and technology, which advances in health can quickly reach more people.
- Free trade increases foreign investment, and within this investment by companies researching and developing health technology. - Multilateral trade treaties allow a wider range of health services, and stimulate innovation in medicines and therapeutic technology by protecting intellectual property.
- is not true that free trade will reduce access to essential medicines. These first, are subject to a lot of import barriers in many countries. In addition, trade agreements do not eliminate generic drugs. Only 5% of essential drugs, according to the List of the World Health Organization, are protected by patents. As Philip Stevens, author of the study, "Free trade is a powerful force for improving the health of the poor around the world."
Stevens adds: "The emergence of the multilateral trade regime under the auspices of GATT, the WTO then has contributed to an impressive global trade liberalization has been accompanied by the spread of wealth almost all corners of the globe, as well as new knowledge and health technologies.
As a result of this phenomenon, life expectancy has increased worldwide. " At a time when many Latin American countries are in the process of negotiation and ratification of trade agreements with economic powers like the United States, European Union and Japan, negotiations in which the issue of intellectual property of drugs is of particular importance, it prudent to review the reasons for freer trade as a catalyst for better health of Latin Americans.
This new study shows how 50 years of trade liberalization has improved significantly to the health of the inhabitants of the planet.
* Free Trade Better Health, by Philip Stevens, director of Health Projects International Policy Network, an NGO based in London. Co-published by the International Policy Network (United Kingdom), Fundacion Atlas 1863 (Argentina), Instituto Libre Empresa (Peru), Center for the Dissemination of Economic Knowledge for Freedom (Venezuela), Circulo Liberal (Uruguay), the Ecuadorian Institute Political Economy (Ecuador), Fundación Libertad (Panama), Institute for Liberty and Analysis Policy (Costa Rica), Instituto Libertad y Progreso (Colombia), Paraguayan Center for the Promotion of Economic Freedom and Social Justice (Paraguay), Instituto Libertad (Chile), Fundacion Libertad y Democracia (Bolivia), Centro de Investigaciones on Free Enterprise (Mexico) and Instituto Liberdade (Brazil).
Source: Cedice
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