Posted on 02/11/2013 9:16:12 AM PST by Theoria
Farmer Hugh Bowman hardly looks the part of a revolutionary who stands in the way of promising new biotech discoveries and threatens Monsanto’s pursuit of new products it says will “feed the world.”
“Hell’s fire,” said the 75-year-old self-described “eccentric old bachelor,” who farms 300 acres of land passed down from his father. Bowman rested in a recliner, boots off, the tag that once held his Foster Grant reading glasses to a drugstore rack still attached, a Monsanto gimme cap perched ironically on his balding head.
“I am less than a drop in the bucket.”
Yet Bowman’s unorthodox soybean farming techniques have landed him at the center of a national battle over genetically modified crops. His legal battle, now at the Supreme Court, raises questions about whether the right to patent living things extends to their progeny, and how companies that engage in cutting-edge research can recoup their investments.
What Bowman did was to take commodity grain from the local elevator, which is usually used for feed, and plant it. But that grain was mostly progeny of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready beans because that’s what most Indiana soybean farmers grow. Those soybeans are genetically modified to survive the weedkiller Roundup, and Monsanto claims that Bowman’s planting violated the company’s restrictions.
Those supporting Bowman hope the court uses the case, which is scheduled for oral arguments later this month, to hit the reset button on corporate domination of agribusiness and what they call Monsanto’s “legal assault” on farmers who don’t toe the line. Monsanto’s supporters say advances in health and environmental research are endangered.
And the case raises questions about the traditional role of farmers.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
If he wants to buy their beans for planting, he should pay the price. Otherwise, buying feed beans at feed prices implies a limitation on their use.
By MICHAEL CRICHTON
Published: February 13, 2007
YOU, or someone you love, may die because of a gene patent that should never have been granted in the first place. Sound far-fetched? Unfortunately, it’s only too real.
Gene patents are now used to halt research, prevent medical testing and keep vital information from you and your doctor. Gene patents slow the pace of medical advance on deadly diseases. And they raise costs exorbitantly: a test for breast cancer that could be done for $1,000 now costs $3,000.
Why? Because the holder of the gene patent can charge whatever he wants, and does. Couldn’t somebody make a cheaper test? Sure, but the patent holder blocks any competitor’s test. He owns the gene. Nobody else can test for it. In fact, you can’t even donate your own breast cancer gene to another scientist without permission. The gene may exist in your body, but it’s now private property.
This bizarre situation has come to pass because of a mistake by an underfinanced and understaffed government agency. The United States Patent Office misinterpreted previous Supreme Court rulings and some years ago began — to the surprise of everyone, including scientists decoding the genome — to issue patents on genes.
Humans share mostly the same genes. The same genes are found in other animals as well. Our genetic makeup represents the common heritage of all life on earth. You can’t patent snow, eagles or gravity, and you shouldn’t be able to patent genes, either. Yet by now one-fifth of the genes in your body are privately owned.
The results have been disastrous. Ordinarily, we imagine patents promote innovation, but that’s because most patents are granted for human inventions. Genes aren’t human inventions, they are features of the natural world. As a result these patents can be used to block innovation, and hurt patient care.
For example, Canavan disease is an inherited disorder that affects children starting at 3 months; they cannot crawl or walk, they suffer seizures and eventually become paralyzed and die by adolescence. Formerly there was no test to tell parents if they were at risk. Families enduring the heartbreak of caring for these children engaged a researcher to identify the gene and produce a test. Canavan families around the world donated tissue and money to help this cause.
When the gene was identified in 1993, the families got the commitment of a New York hospital to offer a free test to anyone who wanted it. But the researcher’s employer, Miami Children’s Hospital Research Institute, patented the gene and refused to allow any health care provider to offer the test without paying a royalty. The parents did not believe genes should be patented and so did not put their names on the patent. Consequently, they had no control over the outcome.
In addition, a gene’s owner can in some instances also own the mutations of that gene, and these mutations can be markers for disease. Countries that don’t have gene patents actually offer better gene testing than we do, because when multiple labs are allowed to do testing, more mutations are discovered, leading to higher-quality tests.
Apologists for gene patents argue that the issue is a tempest in a teapot, that patent licenses are readily available at minimal cost. That’s simply untrue. The owner of the genome for Hepatitis C is paid millions by researchers to study this disease. Not surprisingly, many other researchers choose to study something less expensive.
But forget the costs: why should people or companies own a disease in the first place? They didn’t invent it. Yet today, more than 20 human pathogens are privately owned, including haemophilus influenza and Hepatitis C. And we’ve already mentioned that tests for the BRCA genes for breast cancer cost $3,000. Oh, one more thing: if you undergo the test, the company that owns the patent on the gene can keep your tissue and do research on it without asking your permission. Don’t like it? Too bad.
The plain truth is that gene patents aren’t benign and never will be. When SARS was spreading across the globe, medical researchers hesitated to study it — because of patent concerns. There is no clearer indication that gene patents block innovation, inhibit research and put us all at risk.
Even your doctor can’t get relevant information. An asthma medication only works in certain patients. Yet its manufacturer has squelched efforts by others to develop genetic tests that would determine on whom it will and will not work. Such commercial considerations interfere with a great dream. For years we’ve been promised the coming era of personalized medicine — medicine suited to our particular body makeup. Gene patents destroy that dream.
Fortunately, two congressmen want to make the full benefit of the decoded genome available to us all. Last Friday, Xavier Becerra, a Democrat of California, and Dave Weldon, a Republican of Florida, sponsored the Genomic Research and Accessibility Act, to ban the practice of patenting genes found in nature. Mr. Becerra has been careful to say the bill does not hamper invention, but rather promotes it. He’s right. This bill will fuel innovation, and return our common genetic heritage to us. It deserves our support.
They were allowed when affirmative action know-nothings started granting patents on anything.
I would not confer it to being from affirmative action type scenarios, but more so by corporate rent seeking or capture.
I don’t always plant soybeans, but when I do, I plant Roundup Ready. They aren’t cheap and when you have a bad year like we had last year, it hurts when you get your check from the grain elevator. Fortunately I don’t make my living doing this, so I don’t really have any skin in the game, at least as far as soybeans are concerned.
Seed companies need to make money and so do farmers. We’ll see if the courts can sort it out, but I certainly hope that the politicians don’t stick their noses into it.
How so? There is no guarantee that these seeds will germinate or grow or be Roundup resistant. He tried something outside the box and it worked.
If I buy Purina Rat Chow and feed it to my dog, am I committing a crime? What if I consume the Rat Chow myself? What if someone uses food stamps to buy steak and feeds that to his dog?
If they wanted their Roundup Ready Soybeans to be useless as seed, then they should have engineered them to be non viable.
Here is a stickier issue. If I plant my unpatented soybeans and they are pollenated primarily by my neighbor’s patented soybeans (due to wind), am I breaking the protection on the patent?
I don’t know a thing about soybeans. If they self-fertilize then this guy is copying monsanto’s product. If any cross-fertilization from non-monsanto stock has occured than it’s a new product, Round-up resistant though it may be.
Its sad to hear the sound of corporatist fascism so early on Monday morning.
“Implied” phooey!
If he’d had to sign a legal agreement to take those beans, then maybe there’d be a case.
But if he didn’t, he can do with those beans what he wishes.
Monsanto is a disaster of a company, completely out of control, anyway.
Hmmm, if *they* really wanted to go after him, *they* should check and see if he has any diesel road vehicles with tax-free ag fuel in them...
I'm not hopeful that the USSC can sort it out based on existing US laws. Too many leftists look to foreign laws now. I heard about a Canadian case some years back about a adjacent farms, one of which used a GM seed, and the neighbor benefited somewhat from wind-blown pollen.
The Canadian court[s] somehow found for the seed company, the adjacent farmer reaping the benefits of their patent without paying for it.
I think that decision flies in the face of [English] common property law about liability for unintentional/unauthorized improvements to a property.
Although, it's been a while since I took that business law course as an undergrad.
>> Otherwise, buying feed beans at feed prices implies a limitation on their use.
“Implies”? Really?
Is there anything in the *sale contract* between the farmer and the feed supplier that *STATES UNEQUIVOCALLY* that feed beans shall not be planted?
If there is then the farmer violated his purchase terma and is in the wrong.
If not then Monsanto should lose.
This is how we do business here in America.
In general I would agree with that logic. But there needs to be some sort of riding herd over the seed companies’ bullying of farmers. I have heard of cases where the seed company will sue a farmer who keeps some of his own seed for planting the next crop year because his crop cross-pollinated with his neighbor’s crop even though the farmer being sued did not plant the hybrid seed.
If a person buys something, it’s his to do with as he chooses. He’s not renting the soybeans, nor is he an employee of Monsanto.
I suspect some organic/heritage farmer out there could try some type of lawsuit if a gmo planted crop near his organic field contaminated his product.
Well first off Monsanto’s claim goes much deeper than this, they claim rights to outlying farmers seed that are progeny from their GM foodstuff even though it occurred naturally.
So if you’re a seed grower and a wind or bee colony decides to pollinate your crop with Pollen from Monsanto’s GM plants, Monsanto believes it has a right to lay claim to royalties.
said:”If he wants to buy their beans for planting, he should pay the price. Otherwise, buying feed beans at feed prices implies a limitation on their use.”
I say, Bull!!
Farmers and others for all of man’s existence have planted some of the harvested seed the next season.
This is like Monsanto suing farmers whose non-Monsanto crops were accidentally cross-pollinated by Monsanto varieties.
Having the only source of viable seeds be Monsanto is worse than foolish.
Maybe you want to lick the boot of big agri-business and their government lackeys to get your daily ration of Soylent Green but not all of us have surrendered.
Agree 110% !!!!!
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