William Pryor: “Mr. President, I am very pleased and honored to join with my friend from Colorado, Senator Brown, in the introduction of…”

“Mr. President, I am very pleased and honored to join with my friend from Colorado, Senator Brown, in the introduction of this amendment. This is the so-called GATT Glaxo amendment. The issue has been presented here on the floor. In fact, this is a simple way of correcting a major mistake that Congress made in adopting the GATT Treaty. It was an oversight. It has been testified to time and time again by Mickey Kantor--our then U.S. Trade Representative who negotiated this particular treaty--that it was a mistake, and that it needs to be corrected. The Patent Office said it was a mistake, and all up and down the line people agree that this was an enormous mistake that we need to correct at this time. The first time we brought this issue to a vote on the floor was December 7, 1995. On that particular vote, the vote cast in the Senate was 48 to 49. There was one abstention. There was one absent Senator. And since that day, since that particular delay, I think it might be interesting to note that very few--a handful of drug companies--Glaxo specifically, have made a profit, or a gross income, because of this variation in the GATT Treaty giving a particular exception, a particular benefit, to a handful of drug companies. There has been an extra $5 million per day in income to these companies.”