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Australian government to consider dropping US FTA amendment

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Tuesday, January 3, 2006

An amendment of the US Fair Trade Agreement insisted by the opposition may be dropped after lobbying by the US Pharmaceutical Industry.

Mark Latham, former opposition leader negotiated the "evergreening" amendment to ensure that drug companies could not extend patents to fight off cheaper generic versions of their medicines. Companies caught doing so may receive multi-million dollar fines. The US Pharmaceutical Industry claims that the provisions are harming investment.

Acting Prime Minister, Mark Vaile said "We will have a look at it, if (the evergreening issue) is raised by the Americans".

"(But) the US will have to prove that Labor's evergreening amendment is commercially detrimental, not just philosophically detrimental."

A Health Department secretary will travel to Washington on January 13 to discuss the issue before a formal review of the FTA in March.

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  This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.
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