For many years, we have fought trade deals with the US on the basis that they would damage the NHS. Now, under the threat of tariffs from Donald Trump, it looks like our worst fears might come to pass.
Will you write to the Health Secretary and tell him to stand firm in the face of bullying from Trump and Big Pharma?
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Trump claims that we are “freeloaders”. Why, he asks, do Americans pay four times as much for medicines as Brits? These high prices leave many Americans with a horrible choice: go without the treatment they need or be forced into debt.
Trump’s question has a simple answer. In the US, Big Pharma has been allowed to profiteer from illness. Using their monopolies over certain medicines, they fleece the public, charging ‘whatever the market will bear’ for new drugs. Some new medicines now cost millions of dollars per patient.
The way to make medicines cheaper in America would be a government crack down on this greed. Instead, Trump is demanding the rest of us pay the same price as Americans do. And if we refuse, he’s prepared to slap massive tariffs on us.
How the NHS protects us
We are currently protected. In effect, the NHS has the power to cap drug prices. In order to sell to us, companies have to prove their drugs are good value for money. If the NHS says they aren’t, companies need to reduce prices so they can sell them here. This keeps prices under control and means the NHS doesn’t go broke. And don’t worry: the pharma companies are still highly profitable.
Big Pharma hates this system – and Trump has given them the ammunition to fight it. In fact, some of the biggest drug companies have pulled billions of pounds worth of investment from Britain in order to put pressure on the government. This action appears to be coordinated – that is why we have joined campaigners at Just Treatment and the Balanced Economy Project to ask the authorities to investigate the companies for anti-competitive behaviour.
Government surrender?
However, it appears the government might have surrendered, lifting the price cap on certain medicines by 25%. It has been reported that, with MPs still in the dark about the plan, the government has asked Trump whether he will accept their compromise.
For the sake of our NHS, the government must not go through with this. We gain nothing from diverting NHS funds into the pockets of some of the world’s richest companies.
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What is at stake is how we research and produce medicines in the future. Instead of taking orders from corporate boardrooms, the government should start building a medicine industry which puts our health needs first, and then work with countries in the global south to help boost their research and production capacity, breaking big pharma dominance.
That will cost money... but so do overpriced drugs. If we stay strong, we can develop a better medicine system.
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Thank you,
Nick Dearden
Director, Global Justice Now
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P.S. To read more about this, you can read my piece in the Guardian.
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By joining us, you can fight for regulations that put people before profit, and build public pressure against corporate greed.
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