MONTREAL (CUP) — The practice of bio-patenting is a threat to the people of the Third World, two McGill University professors told students in Montreal last Wednesday.
Sam Noumoff and Constance Vaudrin say multinational corporations, particularly those in the agribusiness and pharmaceutical sectors, have patented plants and animals that are found commonly in the Third World and used for medicinal or other purposes.
Noumoff, who characterized the situation as “bio-colonialism,” said the corporations then make enormous profits from the sale of products derived from these “pirated” plants and animals. He added few are willing to share these profits with the nations of origin.
According to the 1992 Rio Convention on Biodiversity, any indigenous plant or animal is the property of its home government and may not be appropriated. However, the Trade-Related Intellectual Property (TRIP) agreement, which forms part of the WTO convention, contradicts this legislation.
But the piracy of living organisms is not limited to wild plants and animals. One famous case involved the patenting of the blood cells of a highland tribe in Papua New Guinea. Researchers believed the blood cells could be used to find a cure for leukemia.
The U.S. Health Department, in conjunction with the American researchers and anthropologists who made the discovery, obtained a patent agreement for the blood cells, but excluded both the tribespeople and the Papua New Guinea government from sharing in any potential profits.
In another example, the conglomerate DuPont patented and successfully marketed a variety of corn indigenous to Mexico “without one iota of sharing,” according to Noumoff.
Noumoff said Northern nations use their economic supremacy to bully their Southern counterparts by refusing to grant aid to countries that refuse to sign the TRIP agreement.
One way to protect native industries is to provide a documented history of the use of an organism for a specific purpose.
China and the Arab nations have a long-recorded history of their use of herbal medicines. Other regions which have ancient medicinal traditions, such as India, Africa and South-East Asia, have no written record of those traditions. This has led to attempts by states in these regions to index their collective knowledge of plant and animal life in an attempt to avoid bio-piracy.
“Thailand is drafting legislation to permit traditional healers to register their own medicines,” said Noumoff, “but this has been challenged by the U.S. State Department as a possible violation of the TRIP agreement, because it could hamper medical research.”
Countries have also tried, with limited success, to institute programs that eliminate bio-prospecting. The Philippines has enacted legislation prohibiting the practice, but it is enforced with a meager penalty of just 12 days in jail.
In order to equitably permit continued research, Noumoff says research needs to move away from corporate control. He proposes universities assume a leading role in research and patenting of organisms.
“Then we would license the companies,” he said. “We then become the custodians of human knowledge and values which would be equitable.”
