The call for the CDC and WHO to release H5N1sequences misguided
This is something that has been bothering me for a little while. I think a lot of people who aren't studying biology or have had to deal with "biodiversity laws" are missing a few critical pieces of this issue.
WHO is not at fault for not releasing the Indonesian H5N1 sequences. Indonesia has very, very stringent nucleic sequence I.P. laws. All genetic material recovered there is their property. Their Convention of Biological Dviersity Law No.5 (1994) and Cultural Practices Law No. 12 (1992) effectively prevent all non-Indonesians from removing biological materials from the country for study (academic or commercial). If you are granted permission to remove the material, Indonesia is still the owner and licensee of that material. The WHO and CDC cannot release those sequences. It is not within their legal wherewithall. Nature and Science are aware of this - what's eating at me is that when the story is referenced, no one ever notes that the release of these sequences would violate Indonesia law, international patent and property conventions and make research in that country much more arduous for foreign researchers.
Indonesia is what is referred to as a mega-biodiverse country. As such,they are a hotbed for pharmaceutical research. They have stringent laws governing genetic material export to ensure that they get a return on the research that is undertaken there by corporations. Given that the same patent protections are offered pharmaceutical companies in this country, I don't have a problem with this. Everyone deserves the guarantee of a return on their investment.
WHO and CDC release of these sequences would be an act of bio-piracy, and violation of the trust and agreements between Indonesia and foreign researchers......and act that would make it much more difficult for the rest of us to acquire biological material in Indonesia and countries with similar laws, such as Brazil. Let's not forget that, despite their research and economic prowess, the WHO and CDC cannot just enter countries to gather data at will. They have to be granted permission. The release of these sequences without Indonesia's consent could make it much more difficult to research influenza on the whole (you have to remember that novel influenza strains typically emerge in Asia. Indonesia, with high influx of people annually and cultural traditions that include backyard farming makes it a logical place to conduct influenza research). If you want to put pressure on someone, put it on the Indonesian government. Their explicit permission to release these sequences is required.
I read the letter being passed around congress. Undermining the authority of other governments in the interest of medical research is not altruistic and it isn't in the majority's best interests. These sequences end up in Genbank without Indonesian holding the patents, and Western pharmaceutical companies can use them without paying fees. Academics typically don't pay fees to use sequences that have been patented by a government.....so who is really interested in the release of these sequences? Influenza anti-virals are a booming sector in pharmaceutical research. In my view, as I have stated many, many times before, the emphasis on H5N1 as a disease threat is distorted and overblown.
If this were being done with the interests of Indonesians in mind (who - incidently- are actually under immediate threat of highly pathogenic human-human H5N1 strains), governments and patenting offices worldwide would be clammering to speed any requested or required patents of these sequences so that they could be released without the concern of piracy.
Would I like to see them in Genbank. Of course.....but put this issue in perspective. Do you have any idea how many HIV sequences are held without release by pharmaceutical companies? Thousands. When people read this story do they consider how much human proteomic information relevant to TB, HIV and cancer research is being held by companies hoping to make a profit on licensing the sequences and structures? TB and HIV kill 100s and 1000s x more people annually alone than H5N1 has in the last 2 years. Again, I ask why undermine a nation and put everyone's research and health in jeopardy? If you want the sequences, put the pressure on Indonesia and make arrangements for free academic but fee-based commercial use.
I've been on a number of key blogs that have been following this story. Their front pages and links do not discuss the legal problems the CDC and WHO face in releasing these sequences. It's very possible that someone else has mentioned this and I've just missed it. Still, it's been irking me for weeks, so I just wanted to put it out there.
WHO is not at fault for not releasing the Indonesian H5N1 sequences. Indonesia has very, very stringent nucleic sequence I.P. laws. All genetic material recovered there is their property. Their Convention of Biological Dviersity Law No.5 (1994) and Cultural Practices Law No. 12 (1992) effectively prevent all non-Indonesians from removing biological materials from the country for study (academic or commercial). If you are granted permission to remove the material, Indonesia is still the owner and licensee of that material. The WHO and CDC cannot release those sequences. It is not within their legal wherewithall. Nature and Science are aware of this - what's eating at me is that when the story is referenced, no one ever notes that the release of these sequences would violate Indonesia law, international patent and property conventions and make research in that country much more arduous for foreign researchers.
Indonesia is what is referred to as a mega-biodiverse country. As such,they are a hotbed for pharmaceutical research. They have stringent laws governing genetic material export to ensure that they get a return on the research that is undertaken there by corporations. Given that the same patent protections are offered pharmaceutical companies in this country, I don't have a problem with this. Everyone deserves the guarantee of a return on their investment.
WHO and CDC release of these sequences would be an act of bio-piracy, and violation of the trust and agreements between Indonesia and foreign researchers......and act that would make it much more difficult for the rest of us to acquire biological material in Indonesia and countries with similar laws, such as Brazil. Let's not forget that, despite their research and economic prowess, the WHO and CDC cannot just enter countries to gather data at will. They have to be granted permission. The release of these sequences without Indonesia's consent could make it much more difficult to research influenza on the whole (you have to remember that novel influenza strains typically emerge in Asia. Indonesia, with high influx of people annually and cultural traditions that include backyard farming makes it a logical place to conduct influenza research). If you want to put pressure on someone, put it on the Indonesian government. Their explicit permission to release these sequences is required.
I read the letter being passed around congress. Undermining the authority of other governments in the interest of medical research is not altruistic and it isn't in the majority's best interests. These sequences end up in Genbank without Indonesian holding the patents, and Western pharmaceutical companies can use them without paying fees. Academics typically don't pay fees to use sequences that have been patented by a government.....so who is really interested in the release of these sequences? Influenza anti-virals are a booming sector in pharmaceutical research. In my view, as I have stated many, many times before, the emphasis on H5N1 as a disease threat is distorted and overblown.
If this were being done with the interests of Indonesians in mind (who - incidently- are actually under immediate threat of highly pathogenic human-human H5N1 strains), governments and patenting offices worldwide would be clammering to speed any requested or required patents of these sequences so that they could be released without the concern of piracy.
Would I like to see them in Genbank. Of course.....but put this issue in perspective. Do you have any idea how many HIV sequences are held without release by pharmaceutical companies? Thousands. When people read this story do they consider how much human proteomic information relevant to TB, HIV and cancer research is being held by companies hoping to make a profit on licensing the sequences and structures? TB and HIV kill 100s and 1000s x more people annually alone than H5N1 has in the last 2 years. Again, I ask why undermine a nation and put everyone's research and health in jeopardy? If you want the sequences, put the pressure on Indonesia and make arrangements for free academic but fee-based commercial use.
I've been on a number of key blogs that have been following this story. Their front pages and links do not discuss the legal problems the CDC and WHO face in releasing these sequences. It's very possible that someone else has mentioned this and I've just missed it. Still, it's been irking me for weeks, so I just wanted to put it out there.
posted by Anthropolochic at 12:41 PM
4 Comments:
Petition to release H5N1 sequences:
http://www.petitiononline.com/h5n12006/petition.html
this is a slightly more realistic petition. Language in the final lines is a little over the top, but the call for people to release this is info. is better worded than the petition being passed around Congress. I'm an academic. I'm aware that people hoard data. That's not as common as one might think.
Still - I'd like everyone to consider the attention that held H5N1 sequences are getting compared to the single deadliest disease, HIV-1. HIv-1 kills more people, worldwide, annually than any other disease. This is a reality, not a prospective threat. Hoarding, or worse, disposal of sequences happens in HIV research all the time. I really think that this call for publication should be more generalized.
SARS is the best recent comparison, followed by smallpox. The vector speed (sorry, don't know the trade jargon) is so high, and geographic spread has been amplified by the economic imperative of airline growth rates.
HIV-1's death rate is slow enough to inconvenience social infrastructure, but not to paralyze it. SARS had (is it really gone?) and H5N1 have the capacity to disrupt other medical care, delivery of medications, and even food: the collateral damage tots up when people die so fast that you can't burn the corpses at speed.
Anyway, I'm just a drive-by. Nice essay, and nice blog. Please continue! (I live 5 miles from the SF airport, the gateway to America for Pacific Rim diseases, thus "GZH".)
I dig your name!! Thanks for the comments on the blog. I'll post more often now.
True, true. Really virulent pathogens with short latency periods that are transmitted through respired droplets etc. are a huge economic threat. Although food procurement, transportation methods and medical technologies have changed considerably since the early part of the 20th century, a sense of potential impact of a pandemic of this kind of disease could be drawn by referencing the 1918 flu. As you noted, you don't even have to look that far back. SARS can give you a sense of how crippling an outbreak can be, particularly when the outbreak is localized (as it was in the West, to a few cities). The SARS outbreak in Toronto effectively halted tourism in the area, and significantly affected Bay street trading and major business transactions.
After reading you comments, I started a little websearch on potential economic impact. I found this article, http://bio-era.net/Asset/iu_files/Bio-era%20Research%20Reports/Final_testimony_1108_clean.pdf, produced by a group that analyzes the economic impact of biological research and phenomena.
I haven't ploughed through the whole thing yet. Might be worth a scan, if you are interested.
I was doing media scanning work for a Federal heatlh regulator at the time SARS broke. So many issues frustrated attempts to control the initial outbreak. At that time, we weren't getting input from Asian newspaper scanning - at least not in my area. The speed of transmission, the novelty of the contagion, the slip in scanning and, not to be underestimated, the secrecy of the Chinese government (amongst others) led to an ineffectual response in many countries. You are right. Restrictions on the free sharing of information, given the right pathogen, could frustrate health care and lead to devastating economic and life losses.
Thanks for stopping by. Feel free to drop a line on any topic you might want to discuss. If you can, let me know how you came across my post.
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