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A white Rosy Periwinkle
A white Rosy Periwinkle

Biopiracy in the narrowest refers to the appropriation, generally by means of patents, of indigenous biomedical knowledge by foreign entities (including corporations, universities and governments) without compensatory payment.[1] The classic case is that of the Rosy Periwinkle (Madagascar Periwinkle), a plant native to Madagascar. [2] Research into the plant was prompted by the plant's traditional medicinal role and resulted in the discovery of a large number of biologically active chemicals, including the children's cancer cure vincristine. Vincristine is both highly effective in curing children's cancer and, as a result, an unusually lucrative drug. Vincristine was initially patented and marketed by Eli Lilly. It is widely reported that the country of origin did not receive any payment.[3]

Biopiracy is also used in a looser sense to cover the various forms of power imbalance between richer and poorer countries which arise out of poorer countries' tendencies towards high biodiversity and richer countries' tendencies towards needing or wanting the benefits of that high biodiversity. As debate on biopiracy has established itself, so too have pharmaceutical companies and national governments modified their behaviour in response to the debate, leading to a proliferation of related ethical issues and dilemmas. While not strictly "piratical" themselves, nevertheless debate on these related issues is subsumed under the title "biopiracy".

Bioprospecting. Biopiracy is a value-laden term which at the same time has established itself as the primary concept in academic ethical debate on the subject. The term "bioprospecting" is a frequent alternative neutral or positive term. For political correctness, the combination "biopiracy and bioprospecting" can be used. While biopiracy and bioprospecting are easily defined in terms of each other (biopiracy is illegal or unethical bioprospecting; bioprospecting is legalised or ethical biopiracy), a United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies report stated in 2005 that there was no agreed definition of bioprospecting.[4]

Contents

[edit] Practical aspects of biopiracy and bioprospecting

[edit] The complexities of biopiracy - an example

The classic Rosy Periwinkle case is a good example for how biopiracy cases are rarely as simple as they seem. Complicating factors include:

  • The Rosy Periwinkle, while native to Madagascar, had been widely introduced into other tropical countries around the world well before the discovery of vincristine. This meant that researchers could obtain local knowledge from one country and plant samples from another.
  • The locally known medical properties of the plant were not the same as the medical properties discovered and commercially used by Eli Lilly. The use of the plant as a cure for diabetes was the original stimulus for research, but cures for cancer were the most important results.
  • Different countries are reported as having acquired different beliefs about the medical properties of the plant.[5]

[edit] The role of bioprospecting in pharmaceutical research

Theoretically, pharmaceutical researchers could simply take thousands of plant samples and conduct a battery of tests on them to establish any useful medicinal properties. In practice, this is a time-consuming and financially inefficient method. The discovery of useful medicines can be significantly accelerated by taking into account indigenous biomedical knowledge found in the communities where the plants are native. Shamans may be asked to point out potentially useful plants and list their known properties. Typically such local knowledge has been built up over centuries or millenia. Modern pharmaceutical research can build on that local knowledge and achieve faster results.

Media reports about discoveries based on indigenous biomedical knowledge naturally focus on a few outstandingly successful cases. This draws attention away from the realities of pharmaceutical research, in which thousands of dead-ends may be investigated before a positive result is found. Pharmaceutical research has some of the economic properties of attempting to win the jackpot in a lottery. Very large numbers of unsuccessful bets have to be placed, with a small chance of hitting the jackpot. But if the jackpot is hit, the economic returns are unpredictable and can be wildly out of proportion to the invested effort. The lobby group Rural Advancement Foundation International reports that random testing has a success rate of about 1:10000, but if testing is combined with local shamanic knowledge, the success rate can be improved to about 1:2.[6] A less optimistic, but neverthless significant success rate increase to 1:5000 is attributed to the NIH.[7]


[edit] Famous cases in biopiracy

[edit] The Rosy Periwinkle

The Rosy Periwinkle case dates from the 1950's, prior to ethics becoming widely recognized as playing a role in business. The case is discussed above.

[edit] The Neem Tree

A Neem tree
A Neem tree

In 1995 the U.S. Department of Agriculture and a pharmaceutical research firm received a patent on a technique to extract an anti-fungal agent from the Neem tree (Azadirachta indica), which grows throughout India; Indian villagers have long understood the tree's medicinal value. Although the patent had been granted on an extraction technique, the Indian press described it as a patent on the Neem tree itself; the result was widespread public outcry, which was echoed throughout the developing world. Legal action by the Indian government followed, with the patent eventually being overturned (2005).[8]

Importantly, the pharmaceutical company involved in the Neem case argued that as traditional Indian knowledge of the properties of the Neem tree had never been published in an academic journal, such knowledge did not amount to "prior art" (prior art is the term used when previously existing knowledge bars a patent).

In response to biopiracy threats such as this, India has been translating and publishing ancient manuscripts containing old remedies in electronic form. The texts are being recorded from Sanskrit, Urdu, Persian and Arabic; they will be made available to patent offices in English, German, French, Japanese and Spanish in 2006. The aim is to protect India's heritage from being exploited by foreign companies. Hundreds of Yoga poses are also kept in the collection. The project has been criticised by a spokesman for the pharmaceutical industry as "a solution in search of a problem".[9]

[edit] The Enola Bean

The Enola bean is a variety of Mexican yellow bean, so called after the wife of the man who patented it for the variety's distinct shade of yellow in 1999.[10] The patent-holder subsequently sued a large number of importers of Mexican yellow beans with the following result: "...export sales immediately dropped over 90% among importers that had been selling these beans for years, causing economic damage to more than 22,000 farmers in northern Mexico who depended on sales of this bean."[11] A law suit was filed on behalf of the farmers but the outcome of the case is unknown.[12]

[edit] The Hoodia Cactus

The Hoodia Cactus
The Hoodia Cactus

The Hoodia Cactus originates from the Kalahari Desert of South Africa. For generations it has been known to the traditionally-living San people as an appetite suppressant. In recent years (2004 onwards) there has been sensationalist media coverage of the cactus. Derived products may be introduced into developed countries as a cure for obesity. The long-term benefits are controversial.

See main article: Hoodia Cactus

[edit] Further cases

The following is a selection of some of the more interesting cases in recent biopiracy studies.

http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/mexico/biopiracy.pdf

[edit] Legal and political aspects of biopiracy

[edit] Patent law

A frequent legal misunderstanding with respect to biopiracy is the belief that pharmaceutical companies patent plants themselves. It is not possible to patent a living organism. Patents are instead taken out on specific chemicals isolated or developed from plants, often in combination with a stated and researched use of those chemicals.

In the United States, patent law can be used to protect "isolated and purified" compounds. In 1873, Louis Pasteur patented a "yeast" which was "free from disease" (patent #141072). US courts have upheld patents on biological substances like adrenaline and even basic elements. Patents covering biological inventions have been treated similarly. However, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) notes that "a patent on a gene covers the isolated and purified gene but does not cover the gene as it occurs in nature".[13]

It is also possible, under US law, to patent a cultivar. In other words, if you yourself cultivate a new variety of an organism which enhances certain properties of the organism, the variety can be patented (an example is the Enola bean case).

[edit] Convention on Biological Diversity

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) came into force in 1993. It awarded rights over biological resources to the countries in which those resources were located. One of the advantages of it was that it would enable lesser-developed countries to better benefit from their resources and traditional knowledge. Under the rules of the CBD, bioprospectors are required to obtain informed consent, and must share any benefits with the biodiversity-rich country. However, some critics believe that the CBD has failed to establish appropriate regulations to prevent biopiracy.

The 1994 Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) and the 2001 International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture are further relevant international agreements.

[edit] Bioprospecting contracts

A consequence of ethical debate and inter-governmental agreements has been the rise, since the 1990's, of bioprospecting contracts between biomedical research companies and the national governments of countries with high biodiversity. Bioprospecting contracts lay down the rules of benefit sharing and can potentially bring substantial royalties to lesser-developed countries. On the other hand, the fairness of such contracts has been a subject of debate. Unethical bioprospecting contracts (as distinct from ethical ones) can be viewed as a new form of biopiracy.

An extensively discussed example of a bioprospecting contract is the Inbio agreement between Merck and Costa Rica.[14]

[edit] Ethical issues in biopiracy and bioprospecting

[edit] Deontological (rights-based) considerations

The rights at issue in the biopiracy debates are primarily ownership rights. The question is: who owns the earth's biodiversity? [15]

[edit] Ownership rights of national governments

Under current international law, national governments own the biological resources present within their country, just as they own mineral rights or are responsible for human rights. The fact that this is the legal situation does not automatically make it ethically right, however. The case for national governments having an ethical right to ownership of their biological resources must be argued separately.

An advantage of national government ownership is that some national governments may be strong enough to defend those property rights (e.g. against pharmaceutical corporations). There is little point in assigning property rights to parties who are too weak to defend them.

One problem with national government ownership is that there may be conflicts of interest in developing countries between national governments and local communities. High biodiversity tends to occur in the least developed regions. National governments tend to represent the more developed and urbanised populations of a country. Ethnic and historical gaps between governmentally well-represented groups and the populations of the least developed regions are not infrequent. The knowledge at issue in the biopiracy debates is the knowledge of these local communities, not the knowledge of their governments.

[edit] Ownership rights of local communities

One might argue that it is the local communities who possess the traditional biomedical knowledge who should benefit from the commercial use of such knowledge. Ownership rights should be attributed to these communities in order to safeguard their interests.

An argument against this is that patent and copyright law have long been understood as merely temporary legal mechanisms for allowing inventors to recoup some profits - enough to motivate them to make their discoveries in the first place. The ethical basis of intellectual property thinking is that knowledge is a public good over which a monopoly is only temporarily granted to any specific possessor of that knowledge. Patents and copyrights expire, and rightly so, so that everyone can eventually benefit. If one applied this thinking to the ownership rights of local communities, their intellectual property rights would have long since expired in the interests of the benefit of the rest of humanity.

[edit] All mankind as the owner of biodiversity

The view that specific groups or individuals should only "own" knowledge temporarily in order to reap short-term benefits involves the associated view that ultimately all knowledge is a common good belonging to everyone.

It was under this principle that Eli Lilly built on local knowledge of the Rosy Periwinkle in the 1950's, and it is under this principle that biopiracy generally takes place. The argument is that the old and incomplete knowledge taken from local communities is public knowledge, whereas the completion or development of this knowledge creates something new which can rightly be patented for a limited period of time to the benefit of the pharmaceutical company.

[edit] Consequentialist arguments

Consequentialist arguments typically look at issues such as the maximisation of utility or other benefits. In the case of the Rosy Periwinkle, the most important consequences are the numbers of children's lives saved (and those of various other types of cancer sufferer). An ownership right entails the right to refuse use to anyone - in other words, a deontological approach to the biopiracy problem would logically entail that the owner of the biological resource could impose (for example) export licences and then refuse to grant these or restrict them excessively. To the consequentialist mind, it is intuitively intolerable that large numbers of children should have to die out of respect for a government's property rights.

The Rosy Periwinkle case is somewhat exceptional, however - the benefits arising from vincristine are unusual among pharmaceutical products. In the case of the Enola bean the consequentialist arguments clearly favour the interests of Mexican bean farmers. In the case of the Hoodia cactus the moral need for the drug is less obvious, while at the same time the payment of appropriate compensation to the San would probably have the consequence of finally destroying their fragile way of life.

[edit] Virtue-based arguments

A virtue-based approach might state that although assigning property rights turns out to be a futile and self-contradictory exercise, nevertheless there is something more fundamentally and intuitively offensive about taking shamanic knowledge from traditional communities and making millions out of this without paying anything back to the communities in question. A virtue-based approach can thus bypass the difficult rights issues while nevertheless appealing to fundamental concepts of virtue to enforce some kind of exchange between prospectors and indigenous peoples.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^  An extended discussion of the definition of biopiracy: Graham Dutfield (2004). "What is Biopiracy?". International Expert Workshop on Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit Sharing. 
  2. ^  Mitzi Perdue, The Rosy Periwinkle
  3. ^  Living Rainforest, Cancer cured by the rosy periwinkle
  4. ^  UNU-IAS Report Bioprospecting of Genetic Resources in the Deep Seabed: Scientific, Legal and Policy Aspects p.15
  5. ^  Smithsonian Centre for Education and Museum Studies, A traditional brew leads to cancer cure.
  6. ^  Rural Advancement Foundation International (1994), Bioprospecting/Biopiracy And Indigenous Peoples.
  7. ^  Global Exchange (2004), Biopiracy: A New Threat to Indigenous Rights and Culture in Mexico.
  8. ^  John Lancaster (2006), Age-old cures go online
  9. ^  Vandana Shiva, The neem tree - a case history of biopiracy
  10. ^  L. Pallottinia, E. Garciab, J. Kamic, G. Barcacciaa and P. Gepts (2004). "The Genetic Anatomy of a Patented Yellow Bean". Crop Science 44: 968–977. 
  11. ^  Danielle Goldberg (2003), Jack and the Enola Bean
  12. ^  Web blogs discuss the possible fate of the Enola Bean case: Whatever happened to the Enola Bean? and The Return of the Enola Bean: Biopirating Biodiversity?
  13. ^  US Patent and Trademarks Office (2001), Utility Examination Guidelines
  14. ^  John Eberlee (2000), Assessing the Benefits of Bioprospecting in Latin America
  15. ^  Paul Gepts (2004). "Who Owns Biodiversity, and How Should the Owners Be Compensated?". Plant Physiology 134: 1295–1307. 


[edit] See also

[edit] Bibliography

Shiva, Vandana (1997). Biopiracy : The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge. South Press. 

[edit] External links

  • Heald, Paul J. (2001), "'Your Friend in the Rain Forest': An Essay on the Rhetoric of Biopiracy" . Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=285177 or DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.285177