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Biotechnology Lobby Opposes Weldon
Amendment, Seeks Open Door to Patents on Human Embryos
By Douglas Johnson
NRLC Legislative Director
Legfederal@aol.com
November 11, 2003
NRLC strongly supports the Weldon Amendment, a provision of the
appropriations bill for the departments of Commerce, Justice, State, and
certain other agencies (H.R. 2799), passed by the House last July. The
Weldon Amendment would prohibit patents from being granted on human embryos
or fetuses, including cloned human embryos or fetuses.
The Weldon Amendment would bar the U.S. Patent Office from issuing any
patent on any "human organism," meaning a member of the human species at
any stage of development, including a human embryo or fetus. This
"non-patentability" would cover members of the species Homo sapiens who are
created by human cloning, by in vitro fertilization, or by any other
process.
A patent is, of course, a government-conferred property right. It is a
violation of fundamental human rights, including the right to life, to
confer such property rights over a member of the human family. Indeed, the
U.S. Patent Office itself has suggested that any patent on a human being
would violate the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits
human slavery. But others dispute that position, and it is not at all clear
that a federal court would allow the Patent Office to deny a patent for a
cloned human embryo, unless Congress acts now to clarify the law.
We agree with what President Bush said in his April 10, 2002 speech on
human cloning: "Life is a creation, not a commodity. Our children are gifts
to be loved and protected, not products to be designed and manufactured."
The biotech industry's push to begin human cloning raises particularly
acute concerns about turning humans into patented property. In early 2002,
the magazine National Journal ran a detailed article on the desire of some
biotechnology firms patent cloned human embryos as "medical models. See
www.nrlc.org/Killing_Embryos/patentpuzzle030202.html
In recent weeks, the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) has
circulated a memo
opposing the Weldon Amendment that confirms the industry's desire to seek
patents on any human organisms that are created through "human intervention"
(or "the hand of man"), which could include human embryos with any genetic
modifications whatever, including any cloned embryo.
In a letter dated September 11, BIO further underscores the industry's
desire to patent cloned human embryos, complaining that the Weldon Amendment
"would preclude the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) from granting
patents on an organism of human species at any stage of development produced
by any method, [or] a living organism made by human cloning . . ." That
part of BIO's description of the Weldon Amendment is accurate – but BIO has
also claimed that the amendment would ban patents on stem cells, genes, and
cell and tissue therapy products, none of which is true.
Under BIO's theory of patent law, patents could be issued on the
occupants of what President Bush has called "human embryo farms," and also
on the occupants of future "human fetus farms," in which cloned human
fetuses would be grown to provide desired tissues or organs using artificial
or animal uteruses. BIO disingenuously proclaims that the industry does not
desire to patent a "human being," but it requires no very sophisticated
analysis to discern that here they mean the term "human being" to apply only
to born humans, and only to those who have been conceived and gestated by
entirely natural means.
The Weldon Amendment stands for the principle that human life is not a
commodity, and that a member of the human family can never be regarded as a
mere human invention. Enactment of the Weldon Amendment would be an
important bulwark against some of the darker trends in contemporary
biotechnology research. |
