Countries with developing economies already have contributed much to contemporary medical care: “Hundreds of important and efficacious drugs have already been developed from plants found in developing countries. In fact, four-fifths of all drugs have their basis in nature plant resources.”
Heald, P. J.,
“Traditional Knowledge, Intellectual Property, and Indigenous Culture,” Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law 11 (
2003):
519–
546, at 531,
citing Brush, and
Stabinsky, ,
Valuing Local Knowledge (1996). Others have estimated that “two-thirds of the drugs sold in pharmacies are of natural origin. They account for some $30 billion in sales every year.”
Gulerin, C., “Out of the Forest and Into the Bottle,”
Unesco Courier, May 1, 2000, at 30. Unfortunately, many of these contributions have not been made voluntarily and with full informed consent, thereby giving rise to the concept of “biopiracy.”
Winickoff, ,
supra note 38, at 200–01. Well-reported case studies include a patent application submitted by the U.S. Department of Commerce in the early 1990s whereby the DOC sought to establish intellectual property rights in the cell line of a women who was a citizen of Guaymi, an indigenous group in Panama.
Lock, ,
“Genetic Diversity,” supra note 60, at 99–100. “The woman who was illiterate and unschooled, was said to have given ‘informed oral consent’ to the research, even though neither the tribe nor the woman knew anything about the development of the cell line or the patent application. RAFI and the Guaymi demanded the withdrawal of the application, and the Department of Commerce acquiesced.”
Winickoff, ,
supra note 38, at 200 (internal citations omitted). Another well-reported case study involves an attempt by NIH biomedical researchers to patent the T-lymphotrophic virus, which is found in the blood of the Hagahai people in Papua New Guinea.
Ching, K. H., Note, “Indigenous Self-Determination in an Age of Genetic Patenting: Recognizing an Emerging Human Rights Norm,”
Fordham Law Review 66 (1997): 687–730, 702. The researchers believed that they could develop related research into a diagnostic tool or vaccine for defined types of leukemia.
Id. They allegedly negotiated a profit-sharing agreement with the Hagahaia – a tribe that had no contact with outsiders until 1984, when tribal members sought help for illness that afflicted the group.
Id. RAFI deemed the arrangement human bioprospecting, and NIH relinquished rights to the patent.
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