LTE: Town Should Back Trans Pacific Partnership
Another readers calls on Leesburg to support biopharmaceutical sector.
Residents who violate the town's zoning regulations on signage threaten the town's rural character, these two Woodbury residents contend.
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Dear Editor,
As a Virginian, the Trans Pacific Partnership is of particular interest to me and to our Commonwealth. With an annual economic input of $13.7 billion, the biopharmaceutical sector in Virginia is important to our economic stability and success. Virginia’s economy can be bolstered through increases in exporting in this sector.
It is important to note that Virginia’s success in this industry comes as a result of the hard-work of the researchers and innovators in the biopharmaceutical sector. Negotiators must protect these researchers in order to ensure a future for the bioscience industry in Virginia and in the United States. This can be done through strong intellectual property protections like our current U.S. law — protecting innovations for 12 years.
Let’s bring more opportunity to Virginia for exportation in the bioscience sector by protecting our researchers and their hard-work. I hope that the Trans Pacific Partnership can be negotiated with the good of our economy and our researchers in mind.
Amanda Kadilak
Margaret Flowers
11:12 am on Wednesday, September 12, 2012
The TPP is being negotiated so that pharmaceutical corporations can extend their patents which allows them to keep prices high and out of reach for many people with serious illnesses. Most pharmaceutical research is done in public institutions. So why are pharmaceutical corporations allowed to take this knowledge and make exorbitant profits while keeping life-saving medications out of reach of the people who need them? I hope that Virginians will demand that the TPP not extend the patent time. Yes - keep good jobs in Virginia but not at the expense of human suffering and death.To learn more about the TPP, visit ItsOurEconomy.us
Dr. Margaret Flowers