BIOPLAN POSTING 2001-5-2

Gillian Chalmers <gillian.chalmers@undp.org>
Sent by: owner-bioplan@undp.org
05/25/01 06:11 PM

  From: The Earth Times, 15 January 2001

 Companies rush to patent wildlife of the Philippines

 By Michael A. Bengwayan

 MANILA, 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.
> --
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