Question

please i need the answer with atleast 300 words make sure you type it dont use images ...thanks

Qs: Write a short essay (300 – 500 words) APA Style to answer the following questions:

Should WTO regulations be reformed to improve population health? Why or why not?

Answer 1

The relation between health and trade is not new. Disease and pestilence have long followed global trade routes. Increased trade in tobacco products and processed foods high in sugar or fat contribute to rising chronic disease rates in poorer countries. Trade can also be good for health, improving peoples' lives through access to goods or technologies that cure disease or improve wellbeing. Proponents of trade liberalisation argue further that it can increase economic growth and wealth creation, both of which may reduce poverty and allow for greater investments in health care, education, environmental protection, and other population health determinants. Today's wealthy countries became so through a variety of policies—infant industry protection, export subsidisation, copying of foreign technologies, and strong state controls over foreign investment—that new trade liberalisation rules increasingly deny poorer countries. The WTO's influence extends beyond commercial relations to affect health, social welfare, and culture. This two part glossary introduces the WTO trade treaties (the generic term for specific trade agreements) and explains the key principles and concepts of interest to policy makers and practitioners. It aims to explain the WTO through a public health lens that focuses on disease control and prevention, the reduction of a wide range of health risks, and a commitment to reducing health inequities. The public health implications of these agreements can be direct, as in the restrictions the Agreement on Trade‐Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) can place on access to essential medicines. They can also be indirect in two important ways:

1. the degree to which WTO agreements skew economic benefits and the health advantages these bring in favour of already wealthier/healthier nations and population groups; and
2. WTO expansion into trade related areas that have little to do with reducing border‐barriers to imported goods, and that could restrict national governments' abilities to regulate in the interests of public health.

Governments have long used regulations over foreign investment, and their own domestic purchases or issuing of contracts, to fulfil equity oriented policy objectives related to regional development or marginalised groups. These policy flexibilities are increasingly subject to trade treaty restrictions.

While a better regulatory system in the global trade in agricultural products may well enhance the prospects of the developing world, it is uncertain to what extent more liberalised markets in agriculture would enhance food security within these countries. The core concern from a health perspective is that any problems in food security or the prices of basic commodities may have the strongest impacts not only on the poorest countries, but also on the poorest populations within richer countries, even when they seem to be the ones profiting in general from agricultural exports.The global integration of food and agricultural markets may also lead to a deterioration in diets if local production is replaced by a less nutritious alternative sourced from global markets. Global trade also deals with products of questionable or negative value to health. Trade in tobacco, alcohol and soft drinks is just one example of this. In developing countries, the application of the WHO code on the marketing of breast-milk substitutes and infant foods will be of more importance. The tobacco industry has used the WTO to claim that national policies aimed at curbing tobacco consumption, for instance, by insisting on changes in the packaging, contravene WTO trade agreements. Compared to tobacco, alcohol has gained little attention, even though its abuse is a problem in many developing countries.