Life in Central America

Viruses attacking genetic codes

We are familiar with viruses for computer codes. The Downloaded Aborted! Site is asking us to consider a much scarier scenario: viruses that attack genetically-engineered biological codes.

What happens when a bio-cracker unleashes a plant virus on all the wheat in North America, when the genetic code to all this wheat is closed-source, patented code owned by a corporation?

For my more technically-challenged readers, let me explain the difference between closed-source code and open-source code. (I assume you know what code is.) With closed-source code the company that sells the code (Microsoft, for example) keeps the original code secret. This can produce sloppy code and huge security problems. Most of the computer viruses in the world are aimed at Microsoft software.

Open source software, by contrast, is community property, and it is constantly being improved by an army of independent programmers. The key word here, is independence. A lot of independent people working on the same problem can be extremely intelligent. A lot of company employees working on the same problem can be amazingly stupid.

Can you see the problem?

Genetic engineering

Some of the following was taken from the article Biocolonization by Andrew Kimbrell, in the book The case against the Global Economy.

Genetic engineering was launched in 1968 by the Supreme Court decision in Diamond vs.Chakrabarty, one of the most important and infamous legal decisions of the last century. Microbiologist Chakrabarty an employee of General Electric, had developed a type of bacteria that could digest oil. GE quickly applied to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) for a patent on Chakrabarty’s genetically engineered bacteria. After several years of review, the PTO rejected the GE patent under the traditional legal doctrine that life forms are not patentable.

Eventually, the case was appealed to the Supreme Court. GE and other corporations argued before the court that life forms were simply chemical products that could be patented just like any other manufacture. Opponents reasoned that with patent profits as fuel, the accelerated drive to commercialize engineered life would eliminate all chance of objective public education and participation in the policy decisions involved. They were right, but they lost the case anyway.

The Supreme Court handed down a surprise decision. By a five to four margin it decided that GE could have its patent, it had decided that life was patentable. Life forms are now a kind of intellectual property.

In 1985, the PTO issued a ruling extending the Chakrabarty decision to include all “multicellular living organisms, including animals.” There was one exception: humans. There was a big loophole however: discrete human organs, tissues, cells, and genes are patentable.

In 1990, scientists in North America and Europe launched a new initiative in the international hunt for new genes. They arranged to take blood, tissue, and hair samples from hundreds of endangered and unique human communities throughout the world. The case of the Guaymi is instructive. Epidemiologists have known that there is a high prevalence of a virus known as HTLV-II in the Guaymi. HTLV-II has been loosely associated with the incidence of hairy-cell leukemia. They took a blood sample from a 26-year old woman, a mother of two, who had contracted leukemia but who eventually survived.

In 1991, on behalf of the Department of Commerce, an international patent application was filed on a cell line cultivated from the blood of the Guaymi mother. Scientist Jonathan Kaplan is listed on the application as an inventor of the cell line. Because of adverse publicity, this application was later abandoned, but there are numerous patent claims pending on cell lines of indigenous peoples, including those from communities in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. New international treaties such as GATT and the Convention on Biological Diversity further legally codify the right of gene hunters to seize and patent the bodies and resources of indigenous people and restrict the ability of governments to control or restrict the process.

Our animal relatives have not been overlooked either. In 1988 Du Pont got a patent on a mouse that included genes from other species, including chickens and humans. Currently, over two hundred genetically engineered animals, including fish, cows, sheep, and pigs, are standing in line, waiting to be patented.

But the really big money, so far, has been in plants. All of our common agricultural crops have been genetically re-engineered, with unknown consequences. And the dispersion of these crops is out of control. The most outlandish court decisions have been in this area too. Consider the case of Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser.

After years of fighting against bio-tech giant Monsanto, he lost his appeal in the Supreme Court of Canada. In a 5-4 decision (the same margin as in the Chakrabarty case!), the Canadian Supreme Court held that Mr. Schmeiser had violated Monsanto's patent by planting seed from GE canola that had been found on his farm the previous year. How did he get this genetic engineering? On the wind from neighboring farmers. In
Western Canada, contamination from genetically engineered canola is rampant. The decision of the court essentially makes farmers liable to Monsanto for Monsanto's own genetic pollution.

This is not Alice-in-Wonderland. This is the real world, the strange place we live in now.

Intellectual Property is Theft

It is also downright inhuman.

However, before I get too carried away with this line of thought, let me balance it by saying creativity ought to be protected. Please note, however I said creativity ought to be protected, I did not say creativity ought to be considered property. This is obviously not so, but there are powerful interests that want us to believe it is so, and these people are dangerous.

I also believe creators should be acknowledged; the famous saying “Property is theft” was coined by the anarchist Prudhon, and I got the statement “intellectual property is theft” from John Naughton, a columnist for The Guardian. Here is a quote from his article:
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The function of this rhetoric is two-fold. First, it must link how the politician is minded to vote with concepts seen as unquestionably good in the public mind. And second, it must provide a way of associating the opposition with concepts that are anathema to all decent people.

The first thing the RIAA/MPAA have to establish is that any unauthorised copying of their materials is a crime against the natural order. The aim is to signify a moral equivalence between sharing a track from a CD with a friend and stealing your neighbour's goods and handing them round. To achieve this, the RIAA/MPAA have to plant in the public mind the idea that cultural products (movies, recorded music, books) are 'property' in the same sense that your house and its contents constitute property. And since property, such as Motherhood and Apple Pie, is unquestionably a Good Thing, anything that infringes upon it must, by the same token, be Evil.
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Now some words from humble old me:
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We get into a lot of trouble by forgetting most of human history. We are social animals, very social. But we are special social animals because we are able to learn, and learn from each other. Our most important invention is human culture itself. We need to protect the process that makes us human: our creative commons.

The first deposit in this bank of human knowledge, given to us by our distant ancestors, is language. This is an incredible achievement. And fortunately for us, it has never been patented – mainly because it is such a complicated invention we cannot understand it. We just use it, and continuously improve on it.

The same thing might be said of the wheel. This is something we do understand, but fortunately it was invented a long time ago and was not subject to intellectual property laws. Something more modern is Science, which is the ideal example of communal intellectual property.

Something even more modern, and definitely a mixed blessing, is the business world. This strange beast, which seems to us to be one of the foundations of the worlds – is not. The world existed long before it, and it will exist long after it passes away. But right now, the business world is in control.

And the business world wants to control creativity too. This is clearly insane, and this insanity ought to be stopped in its tracks. We have to remember that creativity cannot be controlled, even when it seems to threaten our precious property rights – or the property rights of the rich and powerful.

This is a big subject, and we (myself and a lot of other people) are just getting started on it. Stay tuned for further developments. I welcome contributions from anybody on this subject.