Political Quotes

“I am very troubled by how it has degenerated into a debate about intellectual property rights as compared to saving lives. It is really an unfair debate, because there is no comparison in terms of what we are talking about. Intellectual property rights, our trade policies, many of them were developed and set into stone way before people were dying from HIV and AIDS. So we should not even be making that comparison tonight. We are talking about the basic values of our country, of people in our country who care about people who are dying. We are not really talking about property rights. I think after tonight's debate, this House needs to go back to the drawing board and really reassess our trade policies and how we instruct our trade representatives. The whole world is looking at this House of Representatives to stop what we are doing in terms of our trade policies and to say, yes, we want these countries to begin to be developing their own generic drugs so that they can save the lives of millions and millions of their citizens.”