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Corporate monopoly of science

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Corporations are aiming for an absolute stranglehold on scientific research and the flow of scientific information; that’s why patents on GM crops should be abolished.

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As you may already know, you can’t just go into a store and buy genetically modified (GM) seeds. You have to sign an agreement with the company that produced them, and one of the conditions is that you may not save the seeds from your harvest.

Anyone growing GM crops has to buy seeds from the company every year, which is a problem for all farmers, but especially for those in the Third World; as Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser’s epic battle with Monsanto so clearly brings home to us.

Biotech companies

What is less well known is that the agreements also prohibit you from using the seeds for research. That may not matter to most farmers, but it is important because it means that research into GM crops can be done only by the biotech companies or with their approval.

If they don’t want a particular piece of research carried out, they can refuse permission to use their seeds. Even when they have given permission, if they don’t like the way the research is turning out they can stop it, or prevent the results from being published. Consequently, important decisions on GM crops and all GM Organisms (GMOs) are increasingly based on evidence selected by the companies to put them and their products in the best possible light.

That’s why when the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) invited comments from the public in advance of two meetings on GM crops it was holding earlier this year, twenty six scientists submitted a statement protesting the “technology/stewardship agreements” they have to sign, which inhibit them from doing research for the public good. As a result, “no truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions regarding the technology”.

All the scientists have been active researchers into corn insect pests, and many of them are in favour of GM crops, but they are very concerned about the restrictions placed on them by the industry that effectively stop independent research and the resulting bias in the evidence being presented to the EPA and other regulatory agencies. This does not surprise those of us who have been complaining about the lack of independent research and regulators that routinely ignore and dismiss all evidence of hazards.

Identities

Significantly, the submission to the EPA was made anonymously. Andrew Pollack, the New York Times journalist who broke the story to the public in February 2009, interviewed many of the scientists and was allowed to reveal some of their identities, but many of those who felt strongly enough to want the comments made were not willing to put their careers on the line by letting the biotech industry know who they were.

As Elson Shields, an entomologist from Cornell explained: “People are afraid of being blacklisted. If your sole job is to work on corn insects and you need the latest varieties and the companies decide not to give it to you, you can’t do your job.”

Intellectual property

The three companies Pollack contacted, Monsanto, Syngenta and Pioneer, told him that the restrictions were necessary to protect their relationship with Government agencies. But when Pollack asked an EPA spokesman about this, he was told that the Government only requires management of the crops’ insect resistance. Any other conditions were down to the companies; they have nothing to do with the Government.

The other excuse was that companies have to protect their intellectual property. This is no more convincing than the first one, because as the result of intensive lobbying by the biotech industry, GM crops are protected by patents, rather than the less restrictive breeders’ rights that apply to other crops.

The whole point of a patent is that the inventor makes the idea public and in return is given an exclusive right to it for a period of time, usually 20 years.

To take out a patent and also insist on keeping an invention secret is to want to have it both ways, which is no more than what we have come to expect from an industry that claims genetic engineering is so novel that its products must be patentable and at the same time so conventional that there is no need to test GM crops for safety.

What sort of research can it be that the companies are anxious to prevent? There seem to be two kinds they could have in mind. On the one hand, someone might want to modify an existing GM crop either by conventional breeding or by more genetic engineering.

If they succeeded, however, they would not be able to grow the crop commercially or market the seeds without negotiating a licence with the owner of the patent and paying an agreed royalty. But this is precisely how patenting is supposed to work, and it’s hard to see why the biotech companies should object to it. In any case, if you hold a patent you are able to licence someone else to use your innovation but you are not obliged to.

Environmental impact

The other possibility is research designed specifically to learn more about the crop. This includes testing for health and safety or environmental impact, or to see if it really does what is claimed; for instance, whether an insect-resistant corn actually reduces the amount of pesticide that has to be applied.

Third World Network Features

(The writer Prof. Peter Saunders is Professor of Mathematics at King’s College, London and co-founder of the Institute of Science in Society (ISIS).

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