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"Two senior United States trade negotiators who sealed the trade deal with Australia have accepted plum jobs representing U.S. medical and drug companies," reports the Sydney Morning Herald. Ralph Ives, the current U.S. trade representative for pharmaceutical policy, will become the industry group AdvaMed's vice-president for global strategy. Claude Burcky, head U.S. negotiator for intellectual property trade issues, will become Abbott Laboratories' director of global government affairs. "This may help explain why the Australian trade agreement is designed to undercut access to affordable medicines for Americans and Australians alike," said U.S. Representative Sherrod Brown. Wexler and Walker Public Policy Associates, an independent unit of PR firm Hill & Knowlton, lobbied on behalf of U.S. businesses in support of the American-Australian Free Trade Agreement.