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Last year the chairman of US drugs firm Pfizer, William Steere, said: "Europe seems to be entering a period of the dark ages, where witchcraft and sorcery are prevailing." The sentiment was shared by Andre Pernet, Genset chief executive. "I think the fear generated by the decoding of the human genome, that somehow people's 'essence' would be captured, has carried over into the gene patenting debate. "You don't want to patent a gene and then just watch the patent time deadline melt away like a block of ice. There's no money to be made unless you really want to develop a drug." In the years ahead, the planet's shrinking gene pool is going to become a source of increasing monetary value. Multinational corporations have been for some time and are continuing to scoure the continents to locate microbes, plants, animals and humans with rare genetic traits that might have market potential. After locating the desired traits, biotech companies are modifying them and seeking patent protection for their new "inventions". The `sale' of the entire gene-pool of Tonga to an Australian company surely indicates that this is not a remote issue. While the technological expertise needed to manipulate the new "green gold" resides in scientific laboratories and corporate boardrooms in the north, most of the genetic resources needed to fuel the new revolution lie in the ecosystems of the south. Indigenous peoples claim that what northern companies call "inventions" are really the pirating of local genetic resources and the accumulated indigenous knowledge of how to use them. The life-science companies, on the other hand, argue that patent protection is essential if they are to risk financial resources and years of research and development bringing new and useful products to market. Extending patents to life raises the important legal question of whether engineered genes, cells, tissues, organs and whole organisms, are truly human inventions or merely discoveries of nature that have been skilfully modified by human beings. The discovery of chemical elements in the periodic table, while unique, non-obvious when first isolated and purified, and very useful, were none the less not considered patentable as they were discoveries of nature, despite the fact that some degree of human ingenuity went into isolating and classifying them. The US patent office has said, however, that the isolation and classification of a gene's properties and purposes is sufficient to claim it as an invention. The prevailing logic becomes even more strained when consideration turns to patenting a cell, or genetically modified organ, or whole animal. Is a pancreas or kidney patentable simply because it has been subjected to a slight genetic modification? What about a chimpanzee? Here is an animal who shares 99% of the genetic makeup of a human being. Should he or she qualify as a human invention if researchers insert a single gene into their biological makeup? The answer, according to the patent office, is yes. The patent issue needs to become one of increasing public concern as a result of the stunning breakthroughs in the government-funded human genome project. It is expected that in less than eight years, nearly all the genes that make up the genetic blueprints of the human race will have been identified and become the intellectual property of trans-national life science companies. Such firms also are patenting human chromosomes, cell lines, tissues and organs. PPL Therapeutics, the life-science company that cloned Dolly the sheep, has received a patent that includes cloned human embryos as intellectual property. The increasing consolidation of corporate control over the genetic blueprints of line, as well as the technologies to exploit them, is alarming because the biotech revolution will affect every aspect of our lives. The way we eat, the way we date, the way we have babies, the way we raise and educate children, the way we work, even the way we perceive the world around us and our place in it - all our individual and shared realities will be deeply touched by the biotech revolution. The issue of gene patenting cannot be dealt with solely by lawyers talking to and pressuring politicians using scientists and technicians as their `expert witness for the prosecution'. Really, its closer to a religious-philosophical debate and an expert witness would best come from the religious studies department of a university, not the biochemistry department. What might it mean for subsequent generations to grow up thinking of all life as mere invention, where the boundaries between the sacred and the profane have all but disappeared? Life patents strike at our core beliefs about the very nature of life. The last great debate of this kind occurred in the 19th century over the issue of human slavery, with abolitionists arguing that every human being has "God-given rights" and cannot be made the commercial property of another. Like anti-slavery abolitionists, a new generation of genetic activists is beginning to challenge the concept of patenting human life, arguing that human genes, chromosomes, cell lines, tissues, organs and embryos should not be reduced to commercial intellectual property controlled by global conglomerates and traded as mere utilities. No one doubts for a moment the great potential value in mapping the human genome and the genomes of our fellow creatures. But, if we are to use this knowledge wisely, we need to begin by ensuring that it be held as a collective trust, and not made the private preserve of a handful of life-science companies. The worst thing of all is to conduct the experiments outside laboratories, in fields and forests where people and the rest of nature and are defenseless. We should consider crafting a great global treaty to fencing off the human gene pool - and the gene pool of our fellow creatures - creating a "commons" administered jointly by every nation on behalf of all future generations. It would be a treaty similar to the one we established making Antarctica a commons. The battle to keep the Earth's gene pool an open commons, free of commercial exploitation, will be one of the critical struggles of the biotech century. The race for commercial control over the essence of life is threatening to spiral out of control with private firms, universities and charities claiming exclusive development rights over natural processes in the human body at the rate of 34,500 a month. Research commissioned by the Guardian newspaper reveals the awesome scale of the gene rush, as investors, scientists, entrepreneurs and lawyers use powerful new technology and obscure new laws to isolate and patent the genes which make us what we are - before they even understand what the genes do. Biotech firms say they need patent protection to recoup their investments. But the risk to society is that future medical researchers - private and public - will have to hack their way through forests of patents, paying out hefty licence fees to a host of gene-squatters, before the miracle drugs of the genetics revolution reach the market. "It's like someone buying a street and taking a toll from everybody passing through," said Thomas Schweiger, of German Greenpeace, which is campaigning against gene patenting. Sue Mayer, head of GeneWatch UK, the independent watchdog body commissioned by the Guardian to analyse the gene patent rush, challenged the basis on which gene patents are granted - that genes, or bits of genes, are "inventions". "What's striking is the speed and the scale at which patent applications are being made," she said. "It's impossible that this is caused by a sudden outbreak of creativity and inventiveness. Unless people look at the issue seriously, unless the rules are changed in a few years time we will find very basic knowledge and information has been privatised." Alongside human genes, patents are being sought by organisations, overwhelmingly from rich countries, on hundreds of thousands of animal and plant genes, including those in staple crops such as rice and wheat. Patents are already pending or have been granted on more than 500,000 genes and partial gene sequences in living organisms. When GeneWatch UK began its database search last month, patents had been granted or were pending on 126,672 whole or partial human genes. As of now that number had rocketed by over 34,500 to 161,195, an increase of 27%.
The Guardian's research found that € The US department of health is the world's fifth biggest recorded gene patenter, with applications pending or granted on almost 3,000 sequences € 152 patents have been applied for on rice, 21 on HIV, 13 on the eucalyptus tree and 11 on the spider. € Among gene patent applicants are Queen Elizabeth college, Dublin (human eye), York University (rice), the Wellcome Foundation (HIV) and ICI (eucalyptus). € Gene patenters are overwhelmingly from the US, western Europe and Japan. Opponents of gene patenting believe companies using genetic information to develop real therapies and diagnostic techniques should be able to use the patent system to claw back the huge investment involved. But they object to firms and other organisations being granted patents for genes when they cannot specify what the genes will be used for. "Genes are isolated by computers on a routine basis," said Mr Schweiger. "There's no special intellectual work required. Even if the gene patenter doesn't ever develop a new drug or therapy with the gene, and somebody else does all the investment to find out what use can be made of the gene, all the investment is done by the second company and the first company still gets the money." New Zealand is the first country in the world to hold a formal commision of enquiry into the gene sciences and economic applications. Lets lead the world again as we did on the nuclear debate. Whatever position you take, take a position based on some personal enquiry and reflection. Ignorance is the greatest threat to Nature and humanity, don't be counted as a supporter of something simply because you couldn't be bothered forming an opinion..
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