biopiracy

[kragen@pobox.com]

>From UPD-discuss:

From: Robert Weissman <rob@milan.essential.org>
Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] Companies rush to patent wildlife of the Philippines
http://www.earthtimes.org/jan/environmentcompaniesrushjan15_01.htm

Companies rush to patent
wildlife of the Philippines
By MICHAEL A. BENGWAYAN
© Earth Times News Service

ANILA, Philippines--There is a silent but reckless "gold rush" in Asia.
One where a handful of genomic companies and their pharmaceutical partners
are rushing to privatize the genes of plants, animals and humans to sell
for profit.

The commodity they seek to exploit is not gold but biological information.
The raw material they need is human DNA: that make up genes of human life,
plant, and animal genes. They are the gene hunters and have invaded the
Philippine shores.

Already, biopirates, skirting the loosely-crafted anti-biopiracy law in
the Philippines and with the help of some Philippine scientists, have
successfully acquired patents for a pain-killing snail, a cancer-curing
tree and several vegetables and fruit that are remedies to diabetes.

The Philippine sea snail (Conus magus) has already been patented by
Neurex, Inc. a US-based pharmaceutical company and has earned millions of
dollars for the company. Neurex, with the help of scientists from the
Marine Science Institute of the University of the Philippines (UP-MSI) and
the University of Utah, have been isolating from the snail a toxin called
SNX-111 which is a pain killer that is reported by scientists to be 1,000
times more powerful than morphine.

SNX-111 or Ziconitide was recently reported by Rosemarie Foster of Drug
Infoline as having been issued a letter of approval by the US Food and
Drug Administration on June 28 last year for treatment of chronic pain.
The drug will be marketed by the company Elan Corporation.

The report added that Zoconitide is 100 to 1,000 times more potent than
morphine, so potent to completely paralyze a fish within a matter of
seconds. SNX 111 blocks critical openings in nerve cells, interrupting
pain signals on their journey through the spinal cord to the brain. It is
administered through a small tube directly into the spinal cord.

During the first year that the pain killer SNX-111 was marketed, it has
earned Neurex more than $80 million. Neurex has entered into a marketing
deal with Warner Lambert, one of the world's major international
pharmaceutical companies to further push the product. SNX-111 will be
worth more when sold outside the US. Another medical company, the US-owned
Medtronic which specializes in medicinal plants, has signed a contract
with Neurex, to sell the pain killer SNX-111.

As a pain killer, it is important in hospitals, drugstores and most
especially, to the growing number of battlefields worldwide. There are
also reports that the toxin from the snail is being tested for
insecticidal properties to fight insects pests that have developed
resistance to most chemicals.

Neurex owns all three patents of the Philippine sea snail under US Patent
numbers 5189,020, 5559,095 and lastly 5587,454 which is referred to the
snail toxin treatment for victims of stroke.

The controversial twist in the discovery of the toxin is that
government-paid Philippine scientists, using government money,
collaborated to form and finance a private company called Gene Seas Asia
to capitalize in the commercial value of the snail which ultimately led
not only to the foreign ownership of the snail, but to the exploitation of
the same by a foreign company.

As such, Gene Seas Asia and UP-MSI connections are then siphoning and
circumventing public funds to promote private research for private
individuals, and eventually private income. As such, the arrangement
between both institutions may be violating provisions of Executive Order
247 which poorly provides the government's guidelines against
bio-prospecting but is silent on biopiracy. Biopiracy is the exploration,
extraction and screening of biological diversity and indigenous knowledge
for commercial, genetic and biochemical purposes.

Philippine endemic plants have not been spared. "Ampalaya" or bitter gourd
(Momordica charantia) is now privately-owned by the US National Institute
of Health, the US Army and the New York University which have successfully
gained the US patent numbers US 5484889, JP 6501089 and EP 553357,
respectively, on the Vitamin A-rich vegetable.

Ampalaya, mixed with another Philippine vegetable "talong" or eggplant
(Solanum melongena) are traditional food that make up the Philippine
delicacy "pinakbet", an effective cure against diabetes.

Today, scientists from the US pharmaceutical company Cromak Research, Inc.
in New Jersey has started raking in profits reaching to as high as $500
million from a anti-diabetic product extracted from the two vegetables.
Diabetes, together with cancer and tuberculosis, was named recently by the
World Health Organization (WHO) as a leading disease for this new century.

The diabetic remedy was granted the US patent number 5900240 for Cromak.
It is taken as a dietary supplement. The importance of the diabetic drug
is crucial not only to some 22 million Americans who are afflicted by the
disease yearly, 200,000 of whom die yearly, but also to 170 million others
in developing nations, epidemiologist Venkat Narayan of the Diabetes
International Foundation said.

Talong and ampalaya are low-calorie traditional Philippine food which have
contributed largely to the prevention of diabetes among Filipinos,
according to diabetologists Dr. Julie C. Cabato and Dr. Marcelino Salango.
Both lowers glucose level in blood thus lessening possibility of diabetes
especially for the aging and obese people as well as those who lead
sedentary lifestyles, they added.

The piracy of biodiversity has also claimed the Philippine yew tree (Taxus
sumatrana) which has been reported by the government's Department of
Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) as having been patented by the
University of Philadelphia. Sandra Buking, senior science research
specialist of DENR said two scientists from the university were given a
DENR permit to collect specimen of the tree in 1998 in the mossy montane
forest of Mount Pulag, the country's second highest mountain.

The scientists reported that the tree, found only in Mount Pulag,
contained taxol, a cancer-curing chemical, according to DENR. However,
Buking mentioned that the scientists stopped communicating with DENR even
after a number of requests were made by the agency to the university
researchers.

The biopiracy of plants and animals puts ownership of these valuable
resources into the hands of the few companies which can control the
storage, patenting, licensing, reproduction and sale. As it is, the Rural
Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) in its publication "Issues and
Trends in Biodiversity: Conserving Indigenous Knowledge", 70 percent of
the genetic diversity of the world's 20 major food crops have been lost
from farmers' fields and the remaining 30 percent are controlled by food
and pharmaceutical giants.

It further said that 68 percent of all crop seeds collected in developing
countries and 85 percent of all fetal populations of livestock breeds are
stored in genebanks in industrialized countries or in international
agricultural research centers.

In the Philippines alone, some 150 traditional rice varieties are stored
at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and are being used to
breed input intensive artificial varieties which are then sold back to the
farmers for planting.

The piracy of biodiversity in the Philippines is made worse by the
inadequate provisions as well as limited implementation of Executive Order
247 which provides policies on bioprospecting but says nothing on
biopiracy. Biopriacy is done by multinational firms and governments of
developed countries which patent and map chromosomes of genetic resources
without informing, consulting, acknowledging and duly compensating the
resources.

The most well known biopiracy in the Philippines is the theft of an
antibiotic extract from a soil in the province of Iloilo which became the
world-known drug erythromycin. It was isolated by a Philippine scientist
Abelardo Aguilar who was then working with the Eli Lilly Co. and who was
from the province of Iloilo. Upon Aguilar's discovery of the new drug, he
was promised by Eli Lilly a hefty share of the profits. Despite the
millions of dollars earned by erythromycin and with the Philippine
government's intervention that Aguilar be recognized and be given a share,
Aguilar and his relatives received nothing until recently.

Human tissues are even being owned by companies through human tissue
piracy and tissue culture. Tissue culture is the reproduction of a
microorganism, plant and animal cells in the laboratory. The culture of
human cells is crucial for the biotechnology industry. When kept under
proper conditions, "immortalized" human cells can produce in perpetuity
and provide an infinite quantity of cells that contain the unique DNA of
the original tissue donor or "tricked donor" as in the case of indigenous
people who gave away a part of their lives without their knowing.

Last year, two Philippine nongovernment organizations, the Cordillera
Peoples Alliance (CPA) and the Igorot Tribal Assistance Group (ITAG)--of
which this reporter is a former director--,which work on rural development
and environmental concerns bared that some Ifugao tribes people were lured
into sharing their blood to foreign scientists who posed as medical
researchers. Nothing was heard from the scientists after they collected
blood and hair samples from the ethnic peoples.

Followingly, the Baguio City-based United Nations (UN) accredited
Indigenous Peoples International Center for Policy Research and Education
or Tebtebba Foundation, reported that Aeta tribespeople displaced by the
Mount Pinatubo eruption in the province of Zambales were tricked into
giving blood samples to a foreign medical team who presented themselves as
aid workers.

Vicky Tauli Corpuz who heads Tebtebba and sits as the chairperson of the
UN Indigenous Peoples Volunteer Fund says "the biopiracy of indigenous
peoples'plants and animals is a clear demonstration of disrespect for
indigenous peoples rights; the attempts to gather human tissues from
indigenous peoples clearly is an exploitation which should be condemned by
governments."

Mary Carling who heads the Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA) in the
Philippines condemned the tissue piracy in strong terms saying "biopiracy
is an extension of the imperialist policies of global corporations to
whose ultimate aim is to control the world's resources".

It should be recalled that in 1996, Hagahai tribes peoples in Papua New
Guinea gave blood, tissue, and hair samples to American anthropologist
Carol Jenkins in exchange for soap, candies and chocolates. Unknown to the
Hagahais, their tissues were used to create an anti-leukemia drug. The
tribe's blood contained HTLV-1 which is resistant to the illness. The
Hagahais, through interceding NGOs sued to the World Court and have been
compensated recently for the theft of their tissues but the patent remains
with Jenkins and her company.

Many in the Philippines are now protesting against the onslaught of
biopirates on biodiversity, traditional knowledge and indigenous systems.
One of these, the Philippine Indigenous Peoples Network say the UN
Convention of Biodiversity (UNCBD) should impose a deterring punishment to
any company or institute seeking a patent based on indigenous products and
knowledge.

But this is easier said than done. In a country where poverty is prevalent
and the administrative systems are not functioning well, even the
indigenous people are being forced to gamble their last remaining natural
resources of biodiversity and indigenous knowledge-for a decent meal. What
with the government's Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act (IPRA), the
government program for the upliftment of its ethnic population, officially
unimplemented.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=10285
http://www.angelfire.com/mi/smilinks/thirdeye.html

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