Pharmaceutical Companies Increasingly Commit Biopiracy by Stealing
Indigenous Asian Wisdom and Resources
12/16/98
*******************************
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Pharmaceutical Companies Increasingly Commit Biopiracy by
Stealing Indigenous Asian Wisdom and Resources
Source: InterPress Service
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: December 16, 1999
Byline: Feizal Samath
Colombo: Long before the arrival of Western drugs, indigenous doctors
pounded and prepared medicine from wild plants and flowers gathered
from Sri Lanka's thick tropical forests to treat a variety of
illnesses.
The ancient formulations of the ayurveda system of medicine were
zealously guarded and passed on from one generation to the next in
families that could trace back their ancestry for many centuries.
In the north-central town of Polonnaruwa, an indigenous doctor treats
patients with heart problems who would otherwise require bypass
surgery for a fraction of the cost of surgery which is at least
$4,500 in hospitals in the country.
Now giant pharmaceutical drug companies, aware of the therapeutical
qualities of medicinal plants, are virtually stealing this ancient
wisdom by extracting chemicals from local plants and patenting them
abroad, particularly in the United States.
Upali Pilapitiya, director of the Bandaranaike Memorial Ayurveda
Research Institute, says that the tremendous interest in the West
about natural ayurvedic remedies, has led to a growing interest in
Asia's indigenous plant life.
Studies have revealed that more than 40% of Western pharmaceutical
products contain Asian plant extracts but these Asian countries
including Sri Lanka have earned very little in return.
Export of medicinal plants or their extracts is banned in Sri Lanka.
However, biopiracy is flourishing, quite often with the assistance of
Sri Lankans who have no qualms about selling indigenous knowledge and
innovation.
In September 1998, a university professor and another wealthy Sri
Lankan, whose wife is a social activist, were detained for biopiracy
by security personnel.
'Loopholes in existing laws and other legal snags are robbing the
country of millions of dollars that is rightfully ours,' asserts
Sirimal Premakumara, a scientist at the Ceylon Institute of
Scientific and Industrial Research.
He said that the country does not have the hi-tech scientific
equipment to analyse chemical components of indigenous plants or the
capacity to pay the international patent fee of $60,000, and wealthy
countries are taking advantage of this.
For instance, Salacil Reticulata, the scientific name for the locally
grown Kothalahimbutu plant, has been recognised abroad for its
ability to control diabetes. Ayurveda physicians in Sri Lanka have
always advised patients to drink water left overnight in a hand-
carved Kothalahimbutu mug or jug, whose production has become a
cottage industry on the island.
Newspapers here report that a Japanese drug company patented a
product based on this herb through the American Chemical Society in
1997.
Many other patents, like from the plant Weniwalgeta - used
effectively as a herbal remedy for fever, coughs and colds - have
been registered by Japanese, European and US pharmaceutical
manufacturers.
Environmental lawyer Jagath Gunawardene says, 'Although the law
requires that a patent can be obtained only if it is an economically
valuable invention created through a methodology, most multinationals
have somehow obtained patents for products used in our country for
thousands of years.'
Scientists say that the normal ruse adopted by drug transnationals is
to befriend an indigenous doctor, learn the curative properties of
plants and sometimes offer him a trip abroad. The process of
extraction of the chemical and export of the product which is often
in the form of a powder, chemical solvent or the bark of trees,
follows.
The two recent cases of biopiracy involving a university botanist and
a wealthy Sri Lankan got wide publicity and led to a sudden interest
in the issue by environmentalists and scientists here.
The botanist was intercepted by customs at Colombo airport trying to
smuggle out some plant extracts in his suitcase. In the same month
customs officials discovered a container-load of Kothalahimbutu -
1,512 cups weighing some 4 tonnes - being shipped to Japan through a
firm owned by the wealthy Sri Lankan.
Gunawardene feels that the laws should be strengthened to prevent the
smuggling of Sri Lanka's indigenous plants and ayurvedic knowledge.
Normally, product patents are given only if they fulfil the criteria
of being new, specify the process and must necessarily have
commercial value. If there are discrepancies in this process, the
patent can be contested in court, as in the case of the US patent for
turmeric, which was successfully challenged by India on the grounds
that its medicinal properties have been well-known since ancient
times.
However, because India has no worthwhile law to protect its rich
biodiversity of intellectual property rights, another US company
earlier in 1998 took out patents on long-grain basmati rice, grown
for centuries by farmers in India and Pakistan.
Developing countries, rich in indigenous resources, need to tighten
biodiversity laws to stop the usurpation of the resources and
knowledge of their people, Sri Lankan scientists say. - Third World
Network Features/IPS
-ends-
About the writer: Feizal Samath is a correspondent for Inter Press
Service, with whose permission the above article is reprinted.