By Paul Weinberg
TORONTO, Sep 14 1996 (IPS)

The patenting of human genetic material for commercial purposes is heating up as a major issue among indigenous groups.

The Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP) began as an international effort by anthropologists to explore human migration patterns. But the plan, dubbed the ‘Vampire project’ by its critics, has turned into a genetic gold rush, as scientists try to gain valuable and lucrative access to the blood and tissue samples of geographically isolated aboriginal peoples.

“We’re not against medical research,” says Jean Christie, Director of international liaison of the Ottawa-based Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI).

Rather, RAFI objects to the failure by scientists to fully consult and inform indigenous peoples of the purpose of the blood and tissue sampling.

There is no guarantee that new drugs will be available from the patenting of human genetic materials by pharmaceutical companies, says Craig Benjamin, publications coordinator for the Ottawa-based Cultural Survival Canada, an organisation affiliated with various Canadian aboriginal groups.

“Three-quarters of all patents issued are used to keep products off the market,” he says.

Both RAFI and Cultural Survival Canada staged a small protest in Montreal last week against the failure by organisers to invite indigenous groups to the First International Conference on DNA Sampling.

The Sep. 6-8 conference, sponsored by the Canadian government, had been billed as an open examination of the ethical, legal, and policy concerns surrounding the collection and patenting of human blood and tissue samples.

Conference organiser, Professor Bartha Knoppers, defended the exclusion on the grounds that the academic gathering was focussing on the general difficulties of the project.

“The purpose of the panel is to explore what samples might be done, and what are the guidelines and obligations for researchers,” Knoppers, a professor at the University of Montreal’s Faculty of Law, told Canadian University Press.

But Alejandro Argumedo, the executive director of Cultural Survival Canada, says that “closed academic debate is part of the problem, not the solution.”

“In more than a decade of debate, planning, and carrying out of DNA studies, fundamental questions have never been answered, including what constitutes informed consent, what rights do sampled peoples retain over their blood and tissues, and for what purposes can genetic samples be legitimately used,” said Argumedo.

Given that DNA sampling projects are moving ahead rapidly, and that these projects have already resulted in violations of human rights and threats to the safety of indigenous people, we have no confidence that the genomic industry has any interest in honestly addressing these fundamental questions,” he added.

RAFI is calling for internationally binding ethical standards on the worldwide exchange of human genetic materials. Neither the World Health Organisation nor the Convention on Biodiversity signed at the 1992 ‘Earth Summit’ in Rio de Janeiro have established criteria in this area.

RAFI, which also has a U.S. office, has appeared before international bodies, calling attention to the DNA sample activity carried out by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the U.S. Navy in various parts of the world, including the South Pacific and Latin America.

The most notorious case involves the March 1995 decision by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to issue a patent to the NIH for a blood sample drawn from a member of the Hagahai people in Papua New Guinea. Although NIH officials have stated that a verbal consent to the patent was provided by the Hagahai, no supporting written documentation exists, according to RAFI’s Christie.

Furthermore, NIH officials have refused to release details of the patent, including any financial benefits received by the Hagahai, stating that it contains confidential trade information.

A storm of protest caused the United States in 1993 to shy away from patenting tissue material from a Guaymi aboriginal woman from Panama. But the NIH pursued the Papua New Guinea patent until it was successful two years later, adds the RAFI spokesperson.

Much of the NIH research on human tissues is being conducted, not at its Bethesda, Maryland facility near Washington, but at nearby Fort Detrick, a U.S. military medical research facility, which prior to 1972 was the headquarters of the military’s biological weapons research units.

RAFI is concerned about the free flow of genetic research from civilian to military groups. The organisation is working with indigenous groups and non-governmental bodies to have the matter of DNA testing and the ownership of human genetic materials raised at the U.N. General Assembly early next year, says Christie.

“We want the U.N. General Assembly to seek a legal opinion from the International Court of Justice,” she says.

Intellectual property, of which this issue is a part, is set for final review by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 1999.

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