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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 19:52:46 -0500
From: george b. spiegelman <spie@pop.unixg.ubc.ca>
To John Heddle:
Dear John,
It's all how you look at it, I suppose. Here's the another
perspective, from a molecular biologist.
Ya, Monsanto can't patent anything they find in nature, but they
can patent an engineered organism. This isn't new, folks have been
patenting strains of grain (sterile hybrids) for a long time.
The issue is that Monsanto isn't doing what they are doing to solve
the food crisis. They don't give a hoot about the 'food crisis'; they care
about their profits. The key to profits is to control the market (or in
many cases to create a market that didn't exist). Having a sterile seed
helps to control the market. Your argument that farmers can grow what ever
seeds they want is too simplistic. They can use what ever seed they want
if they are growing for their personal consumption, but if they want to
sell the grain, they have to follow government imposed rules--this is true
in the third world and in the first world. There are government approved,
or registered, strains. In Canada, companies like Monsanto exert control
over these strains by supporting governments that devolve responsibility
for registering grain from independent, government funded bodies to ones
run by private corporations (I assume you know that this happens in
Canada), which happen to be the same corporations that produce seeds.
In the third world, Monsanto exerts control over what's grown by
supporting governments that play by the rules it favors on what kind of
grain can be sold, and by supporting governments in Canada that agree to
support governments that are friendly to Canadian trade (that is, ones that
let companies like Monsanto set the rules). This support has a direct line
to providing, or selling, arms to third world governments to 'keep order'
(i.e. make war on their own population). This is 'why we don't have laws
requiring Monsanto to treat third world farmers differently'. "We" are
making laws that enable the Monsantos to control markets.
All of this has nothing to do with whether genetically engineered
crops are safe to eat-they probably are. I'm sure that any gene we
engineer into a plant crop or animal will escape that crop or animal, but
given the diversity and extent of gene flux, it's likely that we can't do
anything that hasn't already been tried. Is it possible that we'll
introduce something that we will later regret? I'd bet yes, there are lots
of examples where humans regret inadvertently altering the flora and fauna:
the zebra mussle is one.
Most of applied biotechnology is about the way the government of
this and all the countries of the world impose control (and misery) for the
sake of those interests that control corporations. What the number: in
Canada 1% of the population controls 40% of the wealth? It's something
like that. The market decisions are based solely on increasing that
concentration of wealth--that's what capitalism is about.
Finally, should corporations be able to patent things? Wrong
question. The question really is: why did we allow encorporation?
Have a nice day.
George Spiegelman
Oh yes, two more things. 1)There isn't really a 'food crisis' in
terms of the ability to produce food that needs to be solved with
technology. The classic example is the use of BSE to increase milk
production. There's a glut of milk, so what's the point? There would be
lots of food in the 'less developed countries', if the first world would
stop expropriating the land and resources to satisfy it's greed. Look into
what's happened in development of export agriculture in Mexico as the
starkest example. 2)While I agree that the world is overpopulated with
humans, the part of the world which is the most overpopulated is the the
first world, since every person here has over 20 times the impact on the
planet as a person in the third world.
>John H,
> I am forwarding to microbiologists, who can far better than I discuss
>this with you,
> Eric F
>
>On Sun, 20 Dec 1998, John A. Heddle wrote:
>
>> I really enjoy getting all of these messages which help to balance the
>> slant of the popular press and news media. But I have to comment on
>> some of the points, and this one on bio-tech deserves some comment.
>>
>> First, Monsanto cannot patent the natural or existing strains of
>> plants. In fact, in Canada, it cannot patent a living organism.
>> Second, the argument about the ability to patent anything is that
>> without protection for the inventor, there would be no incentive to
>> develop an invention and bring it to market. Is it the patenting of a
>> plant different from the patenting of a telephone, a computer chip, a
>> pesticide, or a drug? Is it appropriate to expect a private company to
>> solve the problems of unequal distribution of wealth within the world or
>> should we look to governments and social organizations to do this? In
>> this case, are we not, in fact, asking Monsanto to solve a problem that
>> we, ourselves, should be solving, and, in the process, trying to absolve
>> ourselves of the responsibility? If we think that Monsanto should be
>> required to treat third-world farmers differently, why do we not have
>> laws requiring this? Finally, let me say that the development of more
>> productive strains of the major food plants, of pesticides, and of
>> fertilizers is essential if more of the world's poor are going to be
>> lifted from near-starvation levels. Furthermore, no technological
>> advance, nor any series of advances, is ever going to be able to
>> compensate for a continuing growth of the human population. Of all the
>> threats the world and all its inhabitants face, human and otherwise, the
>> burgeoning human population is the greatest. Fortunately the growth
>> seems to be plateauing. Contrary to those who measure everything in
>> dollars, the world will begin to recover when the human population
>> begins to decline.
>>
>>
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