The article quoted at the end of this post says:
“Admittedly, there is something very odd, and slightly disturbing, in the spectacle of a fight over who owns the DNA of a virus that could kill millions of people around the world. Should a country retain property rights to the strains of diseases that plague its citizens? There is also, as always, the niggling question of how the world is to fund the development of new vaccines if the few companies that are capable of producing the medicine aren’t compensated for their efforts. Finally, it would seem to me that there is a clear difference between a U.S. government agency owning a patent and a company such as GlaxoSmithKline staking the claim.”
DNA as property is a terrifying reality. When the US Supreme Court opined that genomes could be patented, the risk to the global biosphere was generally little recognized. Given the unstable and unpredictable consequences of biotechnology insertion of genes into host genomes, and the novel (and potentially harmful or lethal) molecules coded for by this process, the “ownership” of viral DNA sequences is even more ominous.
Weaponization of the avian flu has already taken place through
1. Combining the genome of “seasonal flu” viruses with the then-harmless H5N1 avian flu to find the combinations which yielded enhanced pathogenicity (NIH, 2006),
2. Reconstruction of the genome of the most successful bio weapon in history, the 1918 pandemic flu virus (NIH, Mt Sinai Med. Coll, 2000 – 2006)
3. Intentional combination of the H5N1 virus with the newly reconstructed 1918 pandemic flu genome (NIH, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, 2006).
Vaccines allegedly protective against this novel virus are then developed and, like the Sanofi-Pasteur vaccine manufactured in China after approval in the absence of formal human trials, sold to governments for vast sums of money (e.g., 100M doses @$15 US per dose) for stock piling.
Indonesia now says that it owns its valuable resource, the supposedly deadly Avian Flu virus. The United Nations issued a special report on the thorny question of whether a virus that kills someone in a particular country “belongs” to that country.
Besides the absurdity of owning life, and creating a totally artificial geographic demarcation through which to exercise control of that organism, the impetus to commercialize pathogens for nation states and predatory companies will, I fear, prove irresistible. Now add organized crime and rogue states (large or small) into the mix and you have a recipe far, far more toxic than the supposed pandemic Avian Flu.
Greed and technology are a deadly mix. If you doubt that, look at the so called “Health Care” system in the West and consider that since it makes no money if you are well, its best interest is served by the weaponization of food (i.e., Codex Alimentarius – see my video “Nutricide” on our website, www.HealthFreedomUSA.org or www.YouTube.com/NaturalSolutions) and the demonization of natural prevention and treatment so ubiquitous in the West.
Ownership of life forms, pathogenic or otherwise is, in short, a massive error and a monstrous reality which must be reversed for everyone’s benefit.
On August 21, Andrew Leonard wrote an article called Biopiracy and Bird Flu. That article, which follows, discusses the consequences of the confluence of the US Supreme Court’s decision to allow ownership of organisms, the unbridled greed and lack of ethics of the pharmaceutical/illness care industry and the horrifying reality of the depopulation agenda which, thanks to blatant hubris and Freedom of Information Act suits, is no longer speculation but fact.
Prince Phillip yearning to “come back” as an Ebola virus so that he can help depopulate the planet and Henry Kissinger’s Memo 200, the Council on Foreign Relations documents, the Phillipine Supreme Court’s finding that WHO vaccines did, indeed, contain permanent sterility agents which sterilized some 3 million unsuspecting women (and the use of the same technology in Africa, South and Central America, South East Asia and elsewhere) followed by the tardy admission of the World Health Organization that they were using such agents mixed into vaccines are part of a patchwork of death and global supremacy which is horrifyingly plain to see, yet tragically, criminally, perhaps, overlooked by the MMD (Media of Mass Deception).
The worm, or perhaps the virus, is turning now, though. Those very countries which would first be the targets of these depopulation plans and programs (the developed world is in the plan, too – Kissinger stated that depopulation should be the US’s first foreign policy priority starting with the third world, remember) have noticed that at least short term gains, but very substantial ones, can come from controlling, weaponizing and commercializing those lethal viruses among themselves. After all, once exposed to deadly agents like dioxin, ordinary viruses can mutate into very profitable killers. The US obligingly contaminated large parts of South East Asia with dioxin and other deadly poisons.
Moreover, vaccinated birds, not outside flocks, develop avian flu through mutations since they are raised in toxic environments (the birds in their industrialized chicken coops and the viruses in their poison-rich test tubes and growth bottles) and induced to mutation by those toxic conditions.
Now nations like Indonesia, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Viet Nam and a host of others are ready for the Big Time: ready to develop, sell or license their deadly dollar cargo to the even bigger boys: the US, WHO or Big Pharma. All of this falls apart, of course, if the Bigger Boys get their hands and microscopes and vats on these “resources” first.
As events would have it, the fears that they will be done out of their valuable resources is quite accurate. Indonesia is not going to like the fact that a WHO affiliate, the CDC, has applied for a patent on the genome of the Indonesian Avian Flu. Nor will it be happy with the fact that GlaxoSmithKlein is manufacturing a “preventive” Avian Flu vaccine using strains from Viet Nam and elsewhere. So these fears about loosing significant revenue are not unfounded.
Do you find something wrong with this picture? The Natural Solutions Foundation certainly finds the trend, and the mindset, beyond ominous.
Let’s say you’ve got a lab, a virus and a hereditary tribe your people have been warring with for a thousand years. Like the “Islamic Nuclear Bomb” (or the Capitalist Nuclear Bomb), or Depleted Uranium or any other weapon of mass destruction, the mutated, weaponized virus in your tanks could be used on your enemies with the ever present justification that people build for themselves in situations like this. Or, if vaccines were to actually work, you could imagine giving the vaccine to your people and unleashing the disease on the other tribe.
Or, if you are the US, you could stockpile untested, not particularly safe or effective vaccines which would cause widespread… what? Illness? Death? Cancer? Infertility? Adult Autism? Novel vulnerabilities or diseases? Remember, there is no liability in the US for whatever a previously approved drug or vaccine does to you or your child or your mother or your ….
Merchants of death, indeed. Is this the world we want to leave to our children? What are you ready to do about it?
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org
www.Organics4U.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMedia.tv
www.NaturalSolutionsMarketPlace.org
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Now, here is the Salon.com article referred to above:
In late 2006, Indonesia sparked a furor in the international public health community when the country announced it would no longer supply samples of the H5N1 strain of bird flu to the World Health Organization. It wasn’t fair, complained the developing nation, which is second only to Vietnam in recorded cases of human deaths from bird flu: Indonesia was providing crucial data for researchers working on vaccines, but prices for proprietary pharmaceutical products resulting from that data were too high for most Indonesians to afford. If you want to understand why citizens of developing nations get aggrieved about biopiracy, there’s a clue.
After a flurry of worldwide publicity, Indonesia relented, and in March announced it would resume sending samples to the W.H.O., provided that the samples were not made available to commercial organizations. The debate over how best to serve the interests of both developing nations and pharmaceutical companies was by no means resolved, and according to the New York Times, Indonesia received only a tepid promise from W.H.O. “not to pass their samples on to commercial manufacturers without consulting the health minister of the country that provided the sample,” but a clear point had been made.
Now in what appears to be something of a scoop, a freelancer writer and specialist in patents has revealed that even as Indonesia was threatening to withhold its samples, the United States government was applying for an international patent on a new vaccine that incorporates genetic code derived from Indonesian avian influenza samples.
Writes Edward Hammond, in the Aug. 15 issues of SUNS:
In a development that is likely to raise more pressing questions about reform of the WHO Global Influenza Surveillance Network (GISN), an international patent application has surfaced in which the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and U.S. National Institutes of Health claim ownership of Indonesian influenza genes.
A recent patent search has revealed that the CDC, which is a WHO collaborating centre, is applying for a patent for a new vaccine against influenza, particularly for bird flu (H5N1). The vaccine incorporates genes from a H5N1 strain isolated from an Indonesian human victim of bird flu in 2005.
The strain that contains the genes was transferred to the WHO GISN by Indonesia for characterization for public health purposes, but may wind up as the property of the US government.
Under U.S. law, the U.S. government agencies would offer licenses to the technology to pharmaceutical companies. The patent application indicates that the US government intends to pursue the claim in most countries of the world, including Indonesia itself, as well as neighboring countries.
One follower of intellectual property and public health at the blog IPMed found the patent application “troubling”:
The patent application raises specific questions about the US CDC, which is a WHO Collaborating Center for influenza virus studies. The WHO Collaborating Centers receive influenza viruses from donor countries for public health characterization purposes, and not for the purposes of making proprietary claims. The Global Influenza Surveillance Network’s effectiveness rests on the prompt sharing of and access to viruses from all donors. However, one wonders how many donor countries will wish to continue to share influenza viruses for research and vaccine development if it is that Governments who operate Collaborating Centers are minded to make proprietary claims over the materials which they have received as a result of the GISN system. Obviously this patent application built on the back of the GISN system of virus sharing will call into question the entire system and may very well undermine its effectiveness.
Admittedly, there is something very odd, and slightly disturbing, in the spectacle of a fight over who owns the DNA of a virus that could kill millions of people around the world. Should a country retain property rights to the strains of diseases that plague its citizens? There is also, as always, the niggling question of how the world is to fund the development of new vaccines if the few companies that are capable of producing the medicine aren’t compensated for their efforts. Finally, it would seem to me that there is a clear difference between a U.S. government agency owning a patent and a company such as GlaxoSmithKline staking the claim.
Unless, of course, the U.S. does end up licensing its patent to Big Pharma without requiring some developing nation equity, in return.
http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2008/08/21/biopiracy_and_bird_flu/index.htm
http://darwiniana.com/blogzone/2008/08/31/who-owns-the-bird-flu-virus/#comment-251