The quest for medicinal knowledge and the delivery of new pharmaceuticals is a multibillion-dollar industry often leading to bio-piracy and the pillaging of ancient indigenous knowledge.

June 7, 2018

Indigenous medicine is a holistic healing modality governed by diverse cultural, spiritual, ritual and environmental influences integrating the light (spiritual) bodies with the physical, mental and emotional bodies. The modality allows practitioners to address health issues at the molecular level to remove blocked cellular memory and DNA thereby permitting spiritual energies (chi, prana, life force) to flow through the body liberating lifetimes of trauma and dysfunction held within families for generations producing imbalance and disease.

After its marginalization and suppression during colonialism, indigenous medicine is experiencing global awakening and resurgence spurred in part by the United Nation’s Millennium Goals and its Declaration of Indigenous Rights and people seeking alternative natural paths to healing. It has prompted an exploratory attitude within western medical communities to integrate traditional knowledge to combat illness and disease.

However, the quest for medicinal knowledge (bioprospecting) and the delivery of new pharmaceuticals by numerous universities and pharmaceutical conglomerates is a multibillion-dollar industry often leading to bio-piracy and the pillaging of ancient indigenous knowledge. While those engaged in bioprospecting claim good intent and integrity for people and planet, actions often result in a travesty of injustice entwined in a morass of deceit and greed, robbing indigenous people of their ancient knowledge, economic security and often free access to their own traditional medicinal and agricultural products when these institutions claim ownership of such through lenient and unfair patenting laws.

With approximately 90 percent of the world’s living biological diversity concentrated in tropical and subtropical regions within developing countries, specifically regions occupied by indigenous people, it is within these populations that researchers seek new cancer treatments or the next face cream.

With approximately 90 percent of the world’s living biological diversity concentrated in tropical and subtropical regions within developing countries, specifically regions occupied by indigenous people, it is within these populations that researchers seek new cancer treatments or the next face cream.

Driven by manic commitment to profitability, marred by gross exploitation disrespectful of origin, “ownership” of indigenous knowledge and plant DNA has been disrespectfullu usurped around the world from “true” owners without consent, compensation or recognition and is seen by a growing number of people and governments as an infringement of sovereignty.

Two contributing factors to the proliferation of biopiracy in the 20th century and the patenting of living organisms are U.S. patent laws and Eurocentric thinking mired in imperialism and colonialism.

Two contributing factors to the proliferation of biopiracy in the 20th century and the patenting of living organisms are U.S. patent laws and Eurocentric thinking mired in imperialism and colonialism.

“That which was yours - is now mine!”

The Plant Patent Act (1930) allowed any person who "invents or discovers and asexually reproduces any distinct and new variety of plant, including cultivated sports, mutants, hybrids, and newly found seedlings, other than a tuber propagated plant or a plant found in an uncultivated state, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title."

The Plant Variety Protection Act (1970) extending patent coverage to sexually reproducing plants. U.S. Supreme Court Case Diamond vs. Chakrabarty (1980) extended patent coverage to genetically modified organisms.

The travesty of these patent laws is their failure to recognize and honor the role indigenous groups play in the development of agricultural and medicinal plants over centuries and their intellectual property rights to it simply because they were not previously patented.

The travesty of these patent laws is their failure to recognize and honor the role indigenous groups play in the development of agricultural and medicinal plants over centuries and their intellectual property rights to it simply because they were not previously patented.

The good news: things are changing as awareness is heightened, data bases of traditional medicine is more easily accessible and most importantly - more people and governments care. Some recent victories include:

• The United States Patent and Trademark Office partially rejected Pfizer’s patent on its impotence drug, Viagra, because of similarities with a Chinese herb known as horny goat weed.

• The European Patent Office revoked a patent for a traditional remedy extracted from the roots of endemic South African plants.

• The USPTO granted a patent to the University of Mississippi Medical Center for the use of tumeric powder as a wound-healing agent. That this was not novel knowledge would have been obvious to anyone traveling through India, where tumeric-doused bandages are commonly used. But it took the Indian government two years to overturn the patent.

• Another 1995 patent stood for longer still. It was not until 2000 that a patent for a neem-based fungicide - granted by the EPO to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the multinational W.R. Grace - was revoked.

• Peru has prevented several foreign companies from taking out patents on products by demonstration that they were developed using the traditional knowledge of Peruvians. The Peruvian National Commission Against Biopiracy has shown authorities from France, Japan, Korea and the United States that products submitted for patents were developed using the traditional knowledge of Peruvian people. It showed that the products lacked the innovation and inventiveness required for patents. “This is a good example of how coordinated action between state, the business sector and civil society can prevent inappropriately granted patents related to genetic resources and traditional knowledge,” Andres Valladolid, technical coordinator at the commission, told SciDev.Net.

However, not all developing countries have the resources to fight such wars. And doing so eats into budgets that could otherwise by spent using traditional knowledge to develop new an urgently needed treatments for diseases such as malaria.

Where to from here?

New cooperative relationships need to form that educate, empower and protect indigenous communities - their culture, knowledge, intellectual property and economic security. Sophisticated tracking systems and international data bases need to be created. International laws and guidelines need to be established that break down regulatory barriers stuck in the quagmire of intellectual property rights that disadvantage the poor.

At the United Nations General Assembly’s 61st session, on 13 September 2007, an overwhelming majority of members resolved to adopt the United Nations Declaration of Indigenous Rights as an agreed standard for member nations around the world. Regarding indigenous people’s intellectual rights as set forth in the following articles, the Declaration recognized “...the urgent need to respect and promote the inherent rights of indigenous peoples, which derive from their political, economic and social structures and from their cultures, spiritual traditions, histories and philosophies...” reaffirmed “...that indigenous peoples possess collective rights, which are indispensable for their existence, well-being and integral development as peoples....”

It is imperative that we honor each of these commitments to help pave a more humanitarian path toward globalization:

Article 11 (Eleven)

1. Indigenous peoples have the right to practise and revitalize their cultural traditions and customs. This includes the right to maintain, protect and develop the past, present and future manifestations of their cultures, such as archaeological and historical sites, artefacts, designs, ceremonies, technologies and visual and performing arts and literature. 

2. States shall provide redress through effective mechanisms, which may include restitution, developed in conjunction with indigenous peoples, with respect to their cultural, intellectual, religious and spiritual property taken without their free, prior and informed consent or in violation of their laws, traditions and customs. 

Article 24 

1. Indigenous peoples have the right to their traditional medicines and to maintain their health practices, including the conservation of their vital medicinal plants, animals and minerals. Indigenous individuals also have the right to access, without any discrimination, to all social and health services. 

2. Indigenous individuals have an equal right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. States shall take the necessary steps with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of this right. 

Article 31 

1. Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, as well as the manifestations of their sciences, technologies and cultures, including human and genetic resources, seeds, medicines, knowledge of the properties of fauna and flora, oral traditions, literatures, designs, sports and traditional games and visual and performing arts. They also have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their intellectual property over such cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and traditional cultural expressions. 

2. In conjunction with indigenous peoples, States shall take effective measures to recognize and protect the exercise of these rights. 

Article 32 

1. Indigenous peoples have the right to determine and develop priorities and strategies for the development or use of their lands or territories and other resources. 

2. States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources, particularly in connection with the development, utilization or exploitation of mineral, water or other resources. 

3. States shall provide effective mechanisms for just and fair redress for any such activities, and appropriate measures shall be taken to mitigate adverse environmental, economic, social, cultural or spiritual impact. 

“Among the Indians there have been no written laws. Customs handed down from generation to generation have been the only laws to guide them. Every one might act different from what was considered right did he choose to do so, but such acts would bring upon him the censure of the Nation...This fear of the Nation’s censure acted as a mighty band, binding all in one social, honorable compact.” - George Copway (Kah-ge-ga-bowh) - Ojibwa Chief 1818-1863

 

This article originally published in Empower Journal in June 2016, a collaborative program/publication between the Club of Budapest Americas and The Memnosyne Institute.

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