Critics say the U.S. is one of the few industrialized nations not to offer any paid leave for new parents, but now the Washington, D.C., Council is considering a bill that would grant workers in the nation’s capital 16 weeks of paid leave — more than anywhere else in the U.S.

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KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

We hear a lot that the U.S. is behind other countries when it comes to paid maternity and paternity leave. People in Germany get 14 weeks. In Bangladesh, it’s 16. In Cuba, it’s 18 weeks. All at full pay. Martin Austermuhle, of member station WAMU, reports that city council members in Washington, D.C., are proposing that workers get 16 weeks of paid family leave.

MARTIN AUSTERMUHLE, BYLINE: Rob Keithan became a dad last month when his daughter was born seven weeks early. But for all the joy of becoming a parent, he says he’s now adapting to the reality of being a parent.

ROB KEITHAN: Neither my wife or I have any paid leave. She works for a small business that has great, great people, but a small business, and doesn’t have any kind of paid leave program. And I’m an independent consultant. So I don’t get work, I don’t get paid.

AUSTERMUHLE: Keithan says he and his wife were forced to save up so they could afford to take time off with their new daughter. And they’re not alone, says Vicki Shabo, of the National Partnership for Women and Families.

VICKI SHABO: Only 13 percent of workers nationwide have access to paid family leave. Just 40 percent have access to temporary disability insurance. And only 60 percent of workers – 61 percent of workers – have access even to a single paid sick day.

AUSTERMUHLE: Shabo says only California, New Jersey and Rhode Island have paid leave laws on the books, but they could soon be joined by Washington, D.C., where this week a bill was introduced in the city council that would give workers like Keithan and his wife a full 16 weeks of leave, all of it paid. David Grosso is a member of the D.C. Council and wrote the paid leave bill. He says the bill would require all employers to pay a percentage of each employee’s salary into a fund run by the city.

DAVID GROSSO: Higher-paid employees you pay up to 1 percent, lower-paid employees you pay as little as 0.2 percent. And then that money goes into the fund where the fund then gets paid out people who are out on leave.

AUSTERMUHLE: But that the cost would fall largely on employers has sparked opposition from business leaders like Harry Wingo of the D.C. Chamber of Commerce.

HARRY WINGO: You know, our concerns is that this would go further than any other type of legislation in the nation, and in a bad way. The burden would be completely on employers. So this would be employer funded, and in fact, employees would not be contributing as they do in other systems.

AUSTERMUHLE: Business owners also say that operating costs have steadily increased as the D.C. Council has passed new laws like mandatory paid sick leave and a higher minimum wage. Barney Shapiro says that cuts into the bottom line at the trash hauling company he owns.

BARNEY SHAPIRO: In theory, we all want better lives for our workers – at least I do. But you have to also take into consideration we still have to make money.

AUSTERMUHLE: But Grosso, the D.C. Council member, thinks the city’s skeptical businesses should look at paid leave in a different light.

GROSSO: So you’re going to be able to retain employees. You’re going to be able to attract good employees. You’re going to have employees coming back to work happy. They’re going to be more productive.

AUSTERMUHLE: The paid leave bill still faces two votes in the council, but a majority of council members say they already support it. For NPR News, I’m Martin Austermuhle in Washington.

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A big sticking point in the negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership involved biologics medicines and vaccines created from living organisms. The dispute centered on patent protection: how many years drug companies should have before facing competition from generics. The negotiators ended up with a complicated compromise that gives drug makers five to eight years of protection. But nobody is really happy with the outcome.

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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

On Monday, the United States and 11 other countries reached an agreement to boost trade throughout the Pacific basin. It’s called the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and it still has to be approved by the legislatures of the countries involved. One of the most controversial parts of the agreement involved the sale of biologics, the class of medicines derived from living organisms. As NPR’s Jim Zarroli reports, the compromise reached by the countries has left many unsatisfied.

JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: U.S. officials say the dispute over biologics was so intense this weekend that it nearly caused several countries to walk away from the table. The reason has everything to do with money. Judith Rios of Doctors Without Borders says biologics is a fast-growing and very lucrative segment of the drug industry.

JUDITH RIOS: Pharmaceutical companies consider it to be the future. It’s basically going to be one of the most important markets for the pharmaceutical industry not only in the United States but, of course, globally.

ZARROLI: The pharmaceutical industry has developed biologics to treat rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease and psoriasis, and others are in the pipeline. But the drug industry has long complained that competitors can can essentially copy and sell their own version of biologics can biosimilars, and in 2010, the industry convinced Congress to pass a law protecting the data used to develop biologics for 12 years. Joseph Damond is vice president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization.

JOSEPH DAMOND: What that means is that a copycat company can’t just piggyback on that data and say, well, our product’s like theirs, so we don’t have to do any clinical trials.

ZARROLI: Damond says that will give pharmaceutical companies more incentive to develop biologics. But public health advocates say the law sharply curtails competition in the drug business. Again, Judith Rios.

RIOS: Nobody can manufacture. Nobody can sell. Nobody can import, export. It’s a complete barrier to competition. Basically, you cannot enter this country’s market for that period of time.

ZARROLI: And Rios says that will hurt developing countries that desperately need access to inexpensive drugs. Rios notes that drugs are already protected by patent law for 20 years almost everywhere in the world, so drug makers already have plenty of protection from copycats. But Joseph Damond argues that Biologics aren’t like regular drugs, so they’re more vulnerable to being imitated.

DAMOND: They’re not identical to the original product because these products are synthesized by living cells. If you have a different cell line, it’s going to be slightly different. And because they’re not identical, it allows a biosimilar company to claim that they’re not violating the patent.

ZARROLI: As the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks got underway, U.S. officials had hoped to persuade other countries to extend the same 12 years of data protection that Congress had given U.S. drugmakers. But the idea proved deeply unpopular, and the U.S. was forced to accept a complicated compromise that protects data for at least five years and potentially eight.

Critics say the deal will cause drug prices to stay higher than they otherwise would have been. But drug industry officials say they’re disappointed with the compromise too, and they’re holding out the possibility of opposing the deal outright. The opposition from both sides will make it harder for Congress to pass the trade pact next year. Jim Zarroli, NPR News, New York.

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NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.

The World Health Organization has revised its guidelines to say that every person infected with HIV should now be given powerful anti-AIDS drugs. But many countries in Africa have struggled to meet previous less-ambitious WHO treatment targets.

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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

New guidelines from the World Health Organization call for a change in treating HIV, but the recommendations may be difficult to meet. The WHO wants anyone who’s infected with HIV to be given powerful anti-AIDS drugs as soon after diagnosis as possible. And that’s the change – getting the drugs to people earlier. NPR’s Jason Beaubien reports that means millions more people living with HIV should be placed on treatment.

JASON BEAUBIEN, BYLINE: South Africa has more than 6 million people infected with HIV. It also has one of the best programs on the continent to get people onto lifesaving anti-retroviral drug treatment. Most South Africans with later stages of HIV-AIDS are now getting treatment – roughly 3 million of them.

FRANCOIS VENTER: If we do move to this WHO’s recommendations, we’re going to have to double the people that we put onto anti-retrovirals, so that’s a big ask.

BEAUBIEN: Dr. Francois Venter has been treating AIDS patients in Johannesburg since the early days of the epidemic. He also runs the Wits Institute for Sexual and Reproductive Health. Venter calls himself a grudging supporter of these new WHO treatment targets mainly because he’s seen that getting large numbers of HIV-positive people onto treatment in South Africa has helped slow the spread of the disease.

VENTER: What’s interesting, I think, is that we have some preliminary data from the rural areas of South Africa showing quite a dramatic impact into its prevention.

BEAUBIEN: That data links even a modest increase in HIV drug treatment rates with a significant decline in new infections. But the big question remains. How realistic is this goal of universal HIV treatment?

KATHERINE WHETTEN: (Laughter). So I think it’s going to take a long time.

BEAUBIEN: That’s Katherine Whetten at the Duke Global Health Institute. She says getting millions of additional people on treatment in some of the poorest countries in the world is going to be a massive challenge.

WHETTEN: It’s the funding and infrastructure. South Africa or Tanzania, where I do a lot of work, or Kenya – they’re working so hard to get people on treatment already and to keep them on treatment. I’m not sure that the recommendations will help them a lot in the next couple years.

BEAUBIEN: Venter in Johannesburg describes the problem as trying to shove expensive pills down a very weak health care delivery pipeline. Currently, it’s unclear even where the funding will come from to pay for anti-AIDS drugs for another 9 million people around the world. There are also concerns about side effects and drug resistance when you start putting lots of asymptomatic people on powerful medications for the rest of their lives. Jason Beaubien, NPR News.

Copyright © 2015 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.