New UN treaty: What biopiracy has to do with jeans and sweetener
Published: Sunday, May 12th 2024, 07:20
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Many medicines, cosmetics and other products are based on the ingenious powers of nature. Indigenous peoples have often been using such healing powers for thousands of years - but when science and pharmaceutical companies discover them, develop them further, patent them and market them, they are left empty-handed. That is why, after more than 20 years of talks in Geneva, an international treaty on patent rights to genetic resources and traditional knowledge is now to be adopted. The final round of negotiations will begin on Monday (13 May) at the UN Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva.
What do jeans and sweeteners have to do with biopiracy?
These are examples. Jeans: In the early 1990s, a scientist published a paper on organisms from a salt lake in Kenya. One of them produces an enzyme that can work under extreme conditions. Chemical companies turned it into patented bleaching agents that are now used worldwide for the "stonewashed" effect on jeans. After years of struggle, residents of the lake finally obtained payments from some companies. Sweeteners: For years, sweetening with stevia, a plant that indigenous peoples in Paraguay and Brazil have been using for centuries, has been booming. Companies use stevia in jams, soft drinks and many other products. They have secured patents on products made from the extract of the leaves. However, the stevia farmers in South America have none of this.
Is it possible to patent plants or organisms?
No. "A plant that occurs in nature cannot be patented in this way," says Wend Wendland, who heads the department for traditional knowledge at Wipo. "This is only possible if scientists have modified it or extracted something and used it to create a new product." In Germany and many Western countries, access to genetic resources is free. "Anyone can make a medicinal product from Alpine herbs," says geoecologist Axel Paulsch, Chairman of the German Institute for Biodiversity, to the German Press Agency.
What is the fundamental problem?
Critics such as the Swiss non-governmental organization Public Eye say that "Western companies can still do business with "stolen" goods with impunity". A paper written at Berlin's Humboldt University states: "The devaluation of non-Western knowledge and the simultaneous appropriation of technologically and commercially exploitable parts of this knowledge is one of the core concepts of European colonialism." Many countries in the Global South with a high level of biodiversity say that if they - unlike industrialized countries in the past - are to preserve their forests and not cut them down, they must at least share in the profits from the use of the genetic resources they contain.
But hasn't this been regulated worldwide for a long time?
In principle, yes: the international Nagoya Protocol came into force ten years ago. It regulates profit sharing for a country of origin or a special benefit if it grants access to genetic resources from which a marketable product is created. "In the past, you could take a medicinal plant from Ecuador, for example, investigate which genes are responsible for healing, make a medicine from it and Ecuador would get nothing out of it. The Nagoya Protocol ensures a fair distribution of benefits," says Paulsch.
However, the procedures are complicated, not everyone adheres to the regulations and monitoring does not work. The WIPO treaty would oblige companies to state where their material originally came from when applying for a patent. This would allow countries of origin to check whether all approvals have been obtained. One controversial issue is whether patents can be revoked if procedures have been violated.
What do such contracts mean for patients and consumers? Will there be fewer medicines or cosmetics as a result?
For science, nature is one of the most important sources of remedies. "About 70 percent of cancer drugs are derived from natural products or synthetic compounds inspired by nature," writes the World Health Organization (WHO). This requires research. "The more data and resources we have, the better we can do our job," says Amber Scholz, microbiologist at the Leibniz Institute DSMZ - German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures in Braunschweig, to the German Press Agency. "If the use of biodiversity becomes complicated, it limits our ability to solve societal problems. Take the example of vaccines: if we can't get material or DNA sequences quickly, there won't be a quick vaccine." According to her, complicated regulations in some countries have already led to a decrease in research and cooperation in some areas of science. "Who knows what society has missed out on," says Scholz.
So is science against all requirements?
No. Scholz emphasizes: "We are fighting for maximum scientific freedom, but it is clear to us that countries and people who were exploited in the past are entitled to a fair share. We are trying to build a common mechanism that is sustainable and fair." Paulsch says: "The challenge is to allow countries to share in the benefits of the resources without making the conditions so strict that research is practically no longer possible."
Are treaties like Nagoya or now the Wipo the solution to all problems?
Unfortunately not. "The new challenge is genetic engineering processes that can be used to imitate a plant's active ingredients," says Paulsch. "If the DNA is decoded and available in a database, the plant is no longer needed. The big question: should the plant's country of origin still have a benefit?" Experts refer to this as "digital sequence information (DSI)". "At the moment, anyone can access sequences and do whatever they want with them," says Pausch. Neither the Nagoya Protocol nor the Wipo Treaty deal with this. Negotiating with a state about the use of every sequence used is not practicable, says Paulsch. "One proposal is for companies and research institutions to pay into a pot when they use sequences. The money should then benefit all countries that have a lot of genetic resources." Further negotiations are needed on this topic.
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