National Radio Project

MAKING CONTACT

Transcript: #46-98 A Patent on Life: Biopiracy
November 18, 1998

Program description at http://www.radioproject.org/archive/1998/9846.html

Phillip Babich: Welcome to Making Contact, an international radio program seeking to create connections between people, vital ideas and important information. This week on Making Contact:-

Debra Harry: We can snip out pieces of the DNA and insert it into a new virus, a new animal, a new plant, another human being, to create something new. And there’s no way that anybody can predict what the impact for that will be...

David Letourneau: The truth of it is, that there will be genetic pollution all over, in bodies, in all life forms, whether it is microbial life forms or in the soil, whether it’s fish, plants, animals, whatever it may be...

Phillip Babich: So far scientists have been able to genetically engineer new breeds of farm animals, and new plant species in agriculture. And some researchers are cataloging human genes in communities around the world, information that could be used for developing pharmaceutical products or manipulating our DNA. On this program we take a look at some of the social and environmental implications of these developments. I’m Phillip Babich, your host this week on Making Contact.

Jessie Cool: My restaurant was organic 22 years ago. And it’s very scary for me, as a restaurant owner and chef, to have food come to my back door that I don’t know exactly what is in that food.

Phillip Babich: That’s Jessie Cool, chef at the Flea Street Cafe in Menlo Park, California. As biotechnology becomes more prominent in the ways we produce food, more and more people are asking these questions, including farmers and public interest advocates. Andy Kimbrell is the director of the International Center for Technology Assessment in Washington, D.C.

Andy Kimbrell: We had an instance of L-tryptophan several years ago. This was an amino acids, it was in the health food stores, safe, and it had been safe for generations. One batch, made by the Ashoadenta Corporation in Japan, was genetically engineered. Double-gened, they tried to double-gene the part that made the amino acid effective. We had dozens of people die, we had over 1500 become seriously ill, and tens of thousands become ill, from this, and only this genetically engineered L-tryptophan. And the only scientific explanation for this is that double-gening, somehow, because they didn’t know where it was occurring on this amino acid, somehow caused a non-toxic substance to become toxic, and actually become fatal. This is called genetic instability. Whenever you insert novel, new genes, particularly foreign genes, into a fruit, vegetable crop, whatever, we don’t know really the impact it is having on that vegetable and whether it is taking that non-toxic food and making it toxic. We just don’t know.

Phillip Babich: Charles Margoulis is a campaigner on genetic engineering for Greenpeace USA. At a press conference he explained how most genetic engineering of seed stock is geared toward making plants resistant to herbicides used to control weeds.

Charles Margoulis: These are seeds that are developed to tolerate heavier, heavier doses of farm chemicals, weed killers. So the farmer, obviously, has an incentive to used more and more of the herbicide. Exactly the opposite of what these companies say: "Well, now we’re going to move away from chemical agri-culture and into biotechnology. There’s recent research about transgenic herbicide-tolerant crops. An Ohio state study found that these crops can transfer herbicide tolerance to related weeds, resulting in weeds that can out-compete unaltered plants. Just this month a Canadian farmer found Roundup Ready Canola growing where none had been planted. So the actual herbicide tolerance had transferred to what are called volunteers...crop that grow in the next year’s crop. Just this Sunday the London Mail reported a case of a Monsanto field trial of herbicide-tolerant crop that had transferred the gene for tolerance to neighboring plants, and it appears that there may be a lawsuit. The British government may file charges against Monsanto and the British subcontractor involved in this case, because Monsanto failed to surround the test plot with the appropriate size buffer zone, and also failed to make site visits as they were required to. There’s also serious concern about antibiotic resistance, because many transgenic plants use antibiotic resistance genes as markers. And a study this year from the Pasteur Institute in France showed that this antibiotic resistance can transfer to disease-causing bacteria in the soil. So we now know that there is this concern. And there are numerous governments in the European Union including a European Union Scientific Committee that’s warned of this danger of antibiotic resistance.

Phillip Babich: Some groups are putting pressure on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to begin regulating genetically engineered food. David Letourneau, of California Certified Organic Farmers, says bioengineered plants could harm organically grown crops.

David Letourneau: A year and a half ago, the C.C.O.F. board asked me to investigate genetic engineering on behalf of C.C.O.F. and organic farmers. Nobody would have even known about genetic engineering if it hadn’t been for the USDA’s attempt to put it into the organic food production act. If they’d have left that out, we’d still be ignorant of it. As a result of that, the USDA exposed themselves and their corporate masters. And that in itself is awesome. If we allow genetically engineered food crops to go on, just in conventional production, there won’t be any organic production. Because the truth of it is that there will be genetic pollution all over, in bodies, in all life forms, whether it’s microbial life forms, in soil, whether it’s fish, plants, animals whatever it may be.

Charles Margoulis: So the American public is going to realize very soon that we are the lone guinea pigs in this experiment.

Phillip Babich: Charles Margoulis, of Greenpeace.

Charles Margoulis: ...because governments from around the world are taking steps to either ban, have a moratorium, or label genetically engineered crops. In Japan, there are 28 food coops that are now labeling products as ‘biofood free.’ In the United Kingdom, Iceland, and ASDA supermarkets are labeling products "GE-free" and in their own store brands they’ve demanded ingredients that are free of genetic engineering. Austria and Luxembourg have bans on genetically engineered corn; this month Greece banned transgenic Canola, based on the concern for the environment and health effects; France just announced that they will withhold the first harvest of genetically engineered corn in France. And as the result of a lawsuit that Greenpeace brought, France has suspended the use of this transgenic corn seed in their agri-culture. The United Kingdom just announced last week that no new modified varieties will be commercially planted, in the U. K. for at least a year, and they will plant no insect resistant crops, no B.T. crops for at least three years.

Phillip Babich: Greenpeace is issuing a cautionary alert on bio-engineered foods, such as corn and soy. Many common food products contain these crops. Andy Kimbrell of the International Center for Technology Assessment.

Andy Kimbrell: Most people don’t realize it right now, but there as 36 different genetically engineered food products that are out there. For instance, about 40% of the soy in this country is now genetically engineered, about 20% of the corn. And tests have shown that almost all the major soy baby formulas have genetically engineered soy in them. And most of the major corn chips and processed corn products have genetically engineered corn in them. None of these products are labeled; none have been safety tested whatsoever. The FDA, about six years ago, decided it was maybe begin the safety testing and labeling of genetically engineered foods. And then, under massive pressure from the industry, has completely deregulated the food industry. You know, even if you’re going to introduce a new chemical into a food, you have to go through something called G.R.A.S. (Generally Regarded As Safe) certification. And every chemical has to do that. Well, the FDA actually exempted genetically engineered foods for even this most basic safety certification process. So there is no regulation; it’s complete deregulation. We’re testing out this grand experiment, and the first line of guinea pigs is our children, our babies, infants, who are taking this soy formula. We have proven this is not theoretical, this is not maybe. Laboratory tests have shown that without any question the major baby soy formulas do have genetically engineered soy in them, without question.

Phillip Babich: Andy Kimbrell of the International Center for Technology Assessment.

Shereen Meraji: You are listening to Making Contact, a production of the National Radio Project. This program can now be heard across the United States and Canada, Haiti, South Africa, and around the world on Radio for Peace International short-wave. You can also hear us on the Internet. If you want more information about the subject of this week's program, or you would like to know how to get involved with Making Contact, please give us a call. It's toll free, 800-529-5736. Call that same phone number for tapes and transcript orders. We also welcome comments and suggestions for future programs.

Phillip Babich: In 1997, a Texas-based company called RiceTek applied for a patent on a genetically altered strand of Basmati rice. This year the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office approved the application, drawing criticism from farmers in India and Thailand, who have been growing the naturally occurring strain of rice for centuries. Groups have also formed in North America to begin challenging the patenting of rice. Alison Campbell is with the Basmati Action Group, based in Vancouver, Canada.

Allison Campbell: This is just one incidence of the patenting of life that’s happening. It’s happening all over the place, or it’s going to be happening all over the place. This is just the beginning, so we thought we’d better start fighting it now before it gets way too out of control. Basically what our group is trying to do, we’re trying to lobby the Canadian government to make sure that they don’t acknowledge the U.S. patents on Basmati rice, and to put in stronger regulations so the patenting of life is not allowed at all by Canadian standards.

Phillip Babich: There are only subtle differences between natural Basmati rice, and what RiceTek is calling its product, Basmati 867. Nandita Sharma is also with the Basmati Action Group. She says that RiceTek’s practices are infringing on the livelihoods of farmers in India.

Nandita Sharma: RiceTek has been growing rice in Texas and in California in incredibly unsound conditions by actually tapping into fossil waters in California. You know, you shouldn’t grown rice in the desert, but that’s what RiceTek is doing. They’ve taken out a patent on, you know, they say they’ve created Basmati 867, as they call it. They’re trying to do two things; they’re trying to get into an incredibly lucrative market for Basmati rice from South Asia, and totally threatening the hard currency that South Asian farmers are able to get from selling Basmati rice outside of India.

Phillip Babich: Some observers say that genetic engineering and other farming practices employed by transnational corporations are already hurting farmers in India and other developing nations. According to scholar and activist Vandana Shiva, 600 farmers in India have committed suicide this year largely because their farms have had difficulties supporting them and their families. The corporation that’s been targeted by farmers and activists is Monsanto, one of the leading companies in biotech research, in implementation and agribusiness. Of particular concern is the company’s development of a so-called terminator seed. This seed will automatically die at the end of the harvest, leaving farmers completely dependent on Monsanto for next year’s crop.

Allison Campbell: What Monsanto is, is the largest biotech firm in the world. The terminator technology is the technology that, you know, genetically introduced an automatic destruction of the seed as soon as it is harvested. So that means that the age old, life long, timeless process that things grown and then they, within that growing they have the capacity to grow again, producing, you know, seeds of themselves to grow again next year. That has actually been in a lab, changed forever. And the terminator technology, not only does it effect the seeds that have been genetically altered, but it has been shown that the crops next to the piece of land growing terminator genes on it can also be affected. The terminator technology can jump off into wild seed populations.

Phillip Babich: Critics say that this could present unpredictable and potentially dangerous consequences for the environment. One of the first such cases occurred in England. An experimental crop of plants used for production in margarine and vegetable oils pollinated a nearby crop. A British agriculture agency ordered both crops to be destroyed, fearing that a new breed of super-weeds might blossom. Biogenetic engineering, say some activists, also raises the issue of food security. Those who control the seeds, could control food production.

Allison Campbell: Their goal is to make money, as much money as possible, and I think they want basically to sell Basmati rice around the world. They claim, you know, Basmati comes from Texas or California, totally denying the work of South Asian farmers who over centuries developed this rice called Basmati. You know, it’s a special rice. It’s South Asia rice. And I think the larger goal of all corporations is the biotech industry. If you put ‘bio’ and ‘tech’ together, all of a sudden you make a billion dollars, right, that’s what’s happening in the world right now. And I think the larger goal about it is corporate control over the food supply, over the world’s food supply, and corporate control over life, because it’s not just plants that are being patented. Human beings, human genes are being patented, animals are being patented. You know, all forms of life are being patented right now.

Phillip Babich: Campbell adds the movement against bioengineering in agriculture has sprung from activism taking place in the south. Countries such as India and Thailand.

Allison Campbell: The movement behind all of this, like the movement behind our movement in Canada is the movement in the south. You know the movement in the south is totally spearheaded and conceived by farmers themselves, as any good movement is. You know, it’s the people who are affected who are leading it. The alternatives are to completely ban the patents on life, this is completely unacceptable. We need to get rid of the World Trade Organization, this whole control over what so-called intellectual property rights and ensure that it’s collective rights that are the ones that are protected and cannot be privatized, not private intellectual property rights which corporations are fighting for. Basically we have to respect indigenous knowledge and we have to respect nature, those are the two things that are going to save us from these corporations. These are victories that can be won.

Phillip Babich: Allison Campbell is with the Canada-based organization, Basmati Action Group.

Since the 1980s corporations and scientists have been fanning out across the globe collecting genetic information from indigenous peoples in the rain forest. Some of that data has been used to create pharmaceutical products. Products are also underway to collect DNA samples from indigenous peoples, to copy, study and preserve as an archive of genetic information. The most massive of these endeavors is known as the Human Genome Diversity Project. The goal of the project is to collect DNA samples from about 500 indigenous communities around the world over the next few years, in order to map the entire human genetic structure. Many indigenous communities oppose these projects. According to Debra Harry, coordinator of the Indigenous Peoples Coalition Against Biopiracy, some researchers are taking tissues and blood samples for DNA research under the pretext of medical care. Her coalition has been trying to track the Human Genome Diversity Project or H.G.D.P., but it’s been difficult to monitor because funding and protocols are still being worked out, even though research and sampling has begun.

Debra Harry: It’s been hard to track because one of the problems that we keep running into is that technically the H.G.D.P. can say that it is not operational, at least in North America, because they haven’t been full funded and are still working out of monolithical protocol for collections. But at the same time we see that the National Science Foundation has funded pilot projects which are doing collections for developing research protocols for approaches to native peoples. The other thing we’re finding is that collections taking place on a daily basis, out there in various communities around the world, and those projects may or may not be connected to the H.G.D.P., but they’re out there taking samples. They’re taking blood from people. And one of the things that we’re finding is that often times the human rights of people are violated in this process. Things as basic as gaining informed consent are completely ignored. Many times in what’s been documented is that researchers will go into these communities and take blood under the pretense of giving some medical health care, and never tell the people that they’re taking extra samples of blood for DNA gene-banking.

Phillip Babich: Framers of the Human Genome Diversity Project also claim that they’re attempting to preserve threatened cultures with a genetic archive. Walter Dodmer, former president of the Human Genome Organization, wrote the following: "One of the most important components of the Human Genome Diversity Project will involve setting up a type of rescue genetic archaeology. This will consist if a sampling of the world’s threatened peoples before the unique stock is lost or mixed with western genes," he wrote. Debra Harry says there are some troubling implications which underlie this reasoning.

Debra Harry: It’s been characterized as a zookeeper’s mentality. Basically what they’re saying is they expect indigenous populations to disappear, and rather than put effort into saving diverse human populations, they want to go out and collect the blood and databank the genes before we disappear. And so, you know, there’s no interest in the people, it’s an interest in the DNA. And that’s been probably one of the sharpest criticisms about the H.G.D.P. is that it’s inherently racist in its design.

Phillip Babich: One of the stated goals of the Human Genome Diversity Project don’t mention are the reasons who indigenous peoples are threatened. Oil and mining interests routinely encroach on their land and resources, sometimes through violence. Once remote regions of the globe, rich in diversity, are dwindling at a rapid rate, and with them, the indigenous peoples who inhabit the areas. Laura Soriano, an indigenous activist from Oaxaca, Mexico, says that the concept of property is not commonly used among native people in Latin America. International laws, which govern trade and property rights, says Soriano, work against indigenous cultures. Her organization, the South and Meso American Indian Rights Center, distributes a magazine and radio program in Latin America to educate and give voice to indigenous communities.

Laura Soriano: In a lot of our indigenous cultures, the concept of property doesn’t even exist. So it’s even harder to explain, to translate, this new concepts to the indigenous community, especially in their own languages. So this is something that we are trying to do through the publications that we do and through the radio programs that we do. In order for us to inform the grass roots communities.

Phillip Babich: Already companies, researchers, and government agencies are in the process of turning human and plant genetic codes into commodities. In 1993 the U.S. Secretary of Commerce filed a patent claim on the cell line of a 26-year old Panamanian woman. Also the U.S. patent office approved a claim on the cell lines of an indigenous man from Papua New Guinea. These patents were later reversed after public outcry.

Debra Harry: Our DNA is not for sale by any means. And that’s one of the problems we’re running into is that DNA is now a commodity in the marketplace, protected by all the laws and the international superstructure such as GATT and trips that protect trade. On the other hand there are no rights and protection for communities or for people even involved in human research. And what we’re finding, and the reason why we call this whole process biopiracy is that there’s an intense interest in indigenous peoples’ DNA because our populations represents the world’s genetic variation in DNA.

Phillip Babich: Patents have also been filed for medicinal plants. In 1986, an American named Lauren Miller and the U.S.-based International Plant Medicine Corporation received a patent for the Ayahuasca plant. This plant is sacred to numerous indigenous people throughout the Amazon Basin. Shamans use the plants and its hallucinogenic properties for spiritual ritual and healing.

Laura Soriano: If that plant is owned by somebody, in order for them to use it for their sacred ceremonies, they will have to ask permission to use their own sacred plant that they have used for thousands of years. And that totally goes against the indigenous cultures, because they, that’s part of their lives. They do their ceremonies on a daily basis. And it’s just ridiculous. I cannot really explain. It’s like only, you know, the air that we breathe. That kind of thing.

Phillip Babich: Aside from the ethical and cultural implications genetic research presents to indigenous communities, there are also environmental considerations, says Debra Harry.

Debra Harry: We can snip out pieces of the DNA and insert it into a new virus, a new animal, a new plant, another human being, to create something new. And there’s no way that anybody can predict what the impact for that will be. Particularly if that kind of genetic manipulation impacts the germ cells, meaning the egg or the sperm, the reproductive cells of an organism. So then at that point you have also manipulated that life form to all of its progeny. And there’s no way anyone can understand or predict the impact of that kind of manipulation on life means for all of us.

Phillip Babich: Indigenous communities are not alone in their opposition to the Human Genome Diversity Project. Harry says that several science organizations have declined to endorse the project.

Debra Harry: It’s been under attack and has been on the hot seat since it was first announced in 1991. Other scientists question the scientific validity of the research itself. In fact, the National Research Council evaluated the H.G.D.P. for its scientific validity last year, and their report essentially said that the project is so vaguely defined that it was not, they couldn’t evaluate it. And the Project was also seeking endorsement by UNESCO’s international bio-ethics committee a couple of years ago. And the international bio-ethics committee refused to endorse the project, saying that it raised too many ethical questions for the subjects that it wanted to research, that it couldn’t be supported.

Phillip Babich: Debra Harry is coordinator of the Indigenous Peoples Coalition Against Biopiracy, and is an author of several publication on the Human Genome Diversity Project.

That’s it for this edition of Making Contact, a look at Biopiracy. Thanks for listening. And special thanks this week to Maria Gilardin and Lisa Rudman for recorded portions. Maria Gilardin also provided editorial assistance.

Susan Celli and Shereen Meraji helped with production.

If you want more information about the subject of this week’s program, call the National Radio Project at 800-529-5736. Call that same number for tapes and transcripts, or if you’d like to make a comment or suggestion for future programs. Making Contact is an independent production funded by individual contributors. We’re committed to providing a forum for voices and opinions not often heard in the mass media. Our National Producer is David Barsamian, Phillip Babich is our Managing Producer, our Senior Advisor is Norman Solomon, Shereen Meraji is our Production Assistant. Peggy Law is our Executive Director. Theme music is by the Charlie Hunter Trio.

For everyone at Making Contact, thanks for listening.