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GREENPEACE CONDEMNS COMMERCIALISATION OF LIFE
Brussels, 27 November, 1997
EU Trade and Industry Ministers gave the green light today for multinational companies to steal genetic material from developing countries, said Greenpeace.
Meeting in Brussels, the EU Council gave its support to the Patents Directive, a proposal which -- for the first time under European law -- will allow patents to be granted on animals, plants, human genes and cells. These patents will give the owner monopoly control over the use of the genes, cells, plants or animals and the right to charge royalties when they are used.
"A new form of genetic imperialism is developing," said Greenpeace campaigner Isabelle Meister. "This position will encourage big business of the North to exploit the biodiversity rich South." Only yesterday (Wednesday) seven developing countries [1] appealed to the Council of Ministers to reject the Patents Directive. Their appeal was ignored by all except the Netherlands, who voted against the proposal, and Belgium and Italy who abstained.
"Patenting life is a very frightening prospect," said Meister. "The Council has allowed industry's greed to override moral and ethical concerns." Scientists have already created hairless mice, mice with ears that glow and a frog embryo without a head. According to the Council's political agreement, the only situation in which animals are not patentable is if their suffering does not result in `substantial medical benefit to man or animals'. However animals engineered to have physical handicaps or deformities for example would also be patentable if they were not considered to be suffering.
The Council has even ignored some safeguards suggested by the European Parliament, deleting the requirement for industry to prove they had received prior consent to use the genes they find. Thus those countries which may have had their genetic resources plundered by gene hunters will have no influence on how their resources are used or get any benefit from them.
The Council's position will now go to the European Parliament for its second reading. In March 1995, the Parliament rejected an earlier proposed Directive on the Legal Protection of Biotechnological Inventions because it allowed patenting of human genes, plants and animals and Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) believed this was immoral. Greenpeace has called on MEPs and EU countries not to let their moral concerns be overridden by the greed of industry.
Notes
[1] Ethiopia, Mali, Malawi, Guinea, Mozambique, Eritrea, Zambia expressed their position at the Madrid meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
For further information please contact:
Isabelle Meister, tel: + 41 1 447 4195
Louise Gale, Greenpeace European Unit, tel: + 32 2 280 1400