European Parliament Passes "Patents on Life"

On July 16, the European Parliament (EP), meeting in Strasbourg, approved a controversial European Commission directive that would grant corporations the right to patent "genes, human cells, body parts and organs and whole plant and animal varieties and parts thereof."

The only living organisms the Directive on the Legal Protection of Biotechnological Inventions excludes are whole humans and human embryos. Patents on cloned humans and human parts are left ambiguous.

The vote was strongly opposed by churches, doctors, medical associations, patients, farmers, animal and plant breeders, as well as environmentalists, animal welfare groups and activists in developing countries who portrayed their opposition as part of the battle to prevent the total privatization of life's basic building blocks - and of life itself.

Beth Burrows of the US-based Edmonds Institute [20319 92nd Ave. W., Edmonds, WA 98020] said the vote showed "a deplorable lack of democratic responsibility by the EP [which] voted against the expressed concerns of virtually all sectors of European civil society to allow 'patents on life' - for the sole benefit of the large biotech companies." The vote, she added, "will strengthen the impression that the European Union is only a union of the European industries rather than a union of the European peoples."

Joseph Mendelson III, legal director of the US-based International Center for Technology Assessment, said that the EP's ruling "makes the entire biotic community, including human beings, into nothing more than resources over which pharmaceutical and agricultural corporations may vie for ultimate control. By allowing the patenting of living forms, [the EP] has reduced life to the status of marketable commodity."

"It is big transnational biotechnology companies - and the US - [that] are pushing for this legislation, and it is they who will reap the benefits," warned Greenpeace campaigner Benny Haerlin. "Monsanto, Novartis and AgrEvo simply want to knock out the competition and make even more money by grabbing patenting rights all over the world."

The EP patents-on-life ruling is in direct conflict with the European Patent Convention, which forbids the patenting of plants and animals. The approval will strongly influence the debate on the Trade Related Intellectual Property agreement (TRIPS), set for review in 1999. Prior to the July vote, the European Union position has been that TRIPS must allow for the exclusion of animals and plants from patenting.

Extending patent rights to living organisms was supposed to stimulate inventions for the public good. Instead, US-based corporations have used life patents to block innovation. Several large companies now exercise near-total control over all genetically engineered human growth hormones (hGH). One US company has filed at least four hGH patent infringement actions against potential competitors.

Many US researchers boycotted the genetically engineered, cancer-susceptible Oncomouse (the world's first patented animal) because the patent holder, Harvard University, required potential users to sign over rights to all derivative products.

World food supplies now rely on only a few major crops. Permitting patents on plant and animal genes will narrow genetic diversity, allowing a few powerful corporations to control world food markets. Farmers will be at the mercy of the owners of gene patents. Already farmers using Monsanto's Roundup-Ready soybean (engineered to survive spraying by Monsanto agrochemicals) have to sign carefully worded contracts that restrict the seeds' use and require growers to apply only Monsanto pesticides.

The US Patent and Trademark Office already has granted about 35 patents on animals - including some animals that have not even been genetically engineered. In Mendelson's words, "We are now in the midst of a massive attempt by patent seekers to divide up the entire biotic community for private interest."

It is still possible to block the European Community's patents-on-life directive. In November, the EC Council of Ministers, made up of representatives from each EC country, will meet to decide whether to approve the controversial directive.

What You Can Do: Letters of concern may be sent to members of the European Parliament, 97-113 rue Belliard, B-1047 Brussels, Belgium. For more information, contact The Corner House, PO Box 3137, Station Road, Sturminster Newton, Dorset DDT10 1YJ, UK, (44) 1258 473795, fax -48, cornerhouse@gn.apc.org.

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Congress' "Right to Know Nothing" Bill

The so-called "FDA reform" bill (HR 1411) contains a provision that will undermine consumers' right to know what has been done to food products, drugs and cosmetics.

The "national labeling uniformity" provisions in Section 28 of the Drug and Biological Products Modernization Act of 1997 will make it nearly impossible for consumers to know whether food has been genetically engineered, whether toxic pesticides or other carcinogenic residues remain on food products, or whether cosmetics were produced without animal testing.

The bill would outlaw local and state "rBGH-free" (recombinant bovine growth hormone) labeling and advertising, and make it all but impossible to require labeling of genetically engineered foods and crops.

Section 28 prevents states or local legislatures from initiating independent labeling laws relating to food safety, genetically engineered foods, cruelty-free cosmetics or "dolphin unsafe" tuna.

These "reforms" are a manifestation of the New World Economic Order under which local, state and national food-safety and truth-in-labeling laws are eliminated or weakened to facilitate the rapid penetration and monopolization of global markets by transnational chemical, factory-farm, biotechnology, pharmaceutical and cosmetics firms.

- Ronnie Cummins/Pure Food Campaign

What You Can Do: To get involved, contact the Organic Consumers Association, 6114 Hwy 61, Little Marais, MN 55614, (218) 226-4164, Fax: (218) 226-4157, http://www.purefood.org/.