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From:
"Valerie W, McClain" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 25 Aug 2004 06:59:46 EDT
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Priscilla's message states,  " But it seems to me that Tenet 25 does =
nothing more than demand that an LC abide by the existing laws =
regulating intellectual property."

Herein, lies the problem.  Is the existing patenting law on human life/human
milk components and its genetic constructs ethical? If various institutions
own a particular human milk component, obviously no woman could sell that
particular component without infringing on the patent that the particular
institution owns.  Since by law she does not own that component, she cannot sell what
she does not own because that is stealing.

Patenting implies monopoly rights to an "invention."  Our scientists are
"inventing"  what once we called nature.  One might argue that they are not
inventing but discovering the unique properties of human milk components.  Some
infant formula companies own  genetic sequences of human milk components in order
to imitate human milk. What are the ethics in having infant formula industries
owning these proteins?  What will be the long term consequences?  Abiding by
the existing laws on patenting, means that ordinary women hold no power, no
financial power regarding what they produce naturally.  (most women do not want
to equate money-making with the production of milk for their infants--it is a
gift).  In turn will the harvesting, the mining of human milk for profit mean
that breastfeeding will have increasing promotion.  Or will it mean that
breastfeeding becomes less valuable and more likely to be prevented.  I see this
already happening.  A good case would be hiv/aids.  We have government and
private patents on human lactoferrin to treat and inactivate hiv/aids.  Yet women
who have hiv/aids are told not breastfeed.  So explain the reasoning to me?
The science says that hiv/aids can be inactivated by human lactoferrin and men
and institutions have monopoly rights to this invention.  But a woman who has
hiv/aids is told she should not breastfeed.  She must buy her milk at the
company store and use products genetically engineered to imitate human milk to
treat herself and her baby.  This is what monopoly rights to human milk components
will do for us.

Annabelle Lever has her doctorate in political science from MIT and I
recently read an article she wrote in the Journal of Philosophy, Science, and Law
called "Ethics and the Patenting of Human Genes."  She states, "Legal and moral
justification, however, are not identical, and it is possible for a legal
decision to be immoral although consistent with legal precedent and procedure.
Thus is not surprising that the emerging legal consensus on human gene patents
had not significantly allayed doubts about their morality."  a paper worth
reading at:
http://www.psljournal.com/archives/papers/ethics_lever.cfm

Another viewpoint worthy of reading is written by Dr. Mae Wan Ho of the UK.
Her paper is called, "Why Biotech Patents Are Patently Absurd."  Dr. Mae Wan
Ho is "calling for a moratorium on on environmental releases of GMOs because
they are unsafe...and a ban on patents on life forms and living processes, on
grounds they are unethical."  see:
http://www.ratical.com/co-globalize/MaeWanHo/trips2.html

According to a US government website, "All four types of intellectual
property rights [patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secretss] are protected on a
national basis.  Thus the scope of protection and the requirements for
obtaining protection will vary from country to country."
http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/intelprp/

Thus I am baffled that our international organization, the IBLCE, is willing
to step into this confusing arena of intellectual property rights.  While
there is a move to get international agreement in this area, we still have
enormous debates going on within the international community.  The debates not only
center on making intellectual property rights more uniform, they also center on
the ethics of patenting of life forms and their gene constructs.  We are
taking a very debatable and divisive issue and requiring that LCs think one way.

Jonas Salk was once asked who owned the rights to the polio vaccine he
invented.  His answer, " Well the people I would say.  There is no patent.  Could
you patent the sun?"

Currently, we seem to be patenting everything under the sun.  I cannot accept
this as legal and ethically correct.
Valerie  W. McClain, IBCLC

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