The Human Genome Diversity Project: The Politics of Patents at the Intersection of Race, Religion, and Research Ethics
27 Law & Policy 152-188 (Special issue on Law, Technology and Development), 2005
Reprinted in William Gallagher, ed., Intellectual Property (a volume in the International Library of Essays in Law and Society, Aldershott: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2007)
38 Pages Posted: 9 Jul 2014
Date Written: 2005
Abstract
The patenting of human genetic materials provokes wide-ranging misgivings about the appropriate place and scope of intellectual property protections. The issues implicated range from anti competitive practices in the market, the imposition of limits on biomedical research, increasing costs for health care, research ethics, potentials for racial discrimination, and various violations of human rights. Exploring controversies around the Human Genome Diversity Project, patents on genetic sequences, and patents on higher life forms such as the so called "Harvard mouse," the authors find that North American patent policy has developed in the absence of necessary political debate. They link this de-politicization to the hegemony of neo-liberal principles most fully demonstrated by the incorporation of intellectual property under international trade negotiations. They point, however, to the recent emergence and increasing audibility of new social movements that seek to reposition issues of intellectual property in larger debates about human rights, distributional equalities, and social justice
Keywords: Human genome project, Patents, Biomedical research
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