The Perfect Remedy
Ethical
Social
Legal
Ethical Issues
(5.4)
Genetically modified bacteria is essential to bioremediation. This is how we get the specialized microbial communities. However, an issue for many is the slow process of removing these pollutants. These microbes can lead to pollutants to accumulate in the environment which is potentially hazardous. This can be a problem especially for communities that are close to the remediation sites. (5.3)
Patents on Life?
Since 1980, life forms were no longer considered a natural product, but merely a commodity.
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Why Patent?
Patents were historically developed to insure that inventors could share in the financial returns and benefits deriving from the use of their inventions. This gives the patent holder a form of monopoly control for 20 years from the filing of the patent, and creates a legal means of limiting competition. Private investors generally regard such monopolies as favorable to their interests, so in many industries patents aid in the development of new products. In the bioremediation industry, is it okay to patent new microbials that can be used for universal waste clean-up? (5.12)
The First Patents on Life
For over two hundred years living organisms have been excluded from patent laws; life forms were considered a “product of nature” and not a human invention. The non-patentable status of living organisms changed with the 1980 landmark Supreme Court case Diamond v. Chakrabarty. The court decided in a narrow 5-4 decision that a strain of bacteria that had been modified by the insertion of new genes was patentable because it was not naturally occurring. The foreign genes gave the bacteria the ability to break down hydrocarbons, and its “inventors” hoped it might be useful for cleaning up oil spills.
The granting of patents on microorganisms and increased pressure from the biotechnology industries began a “slippery slope” progression towards the patenting of more complex life forms. (5.12)
Possible Cons
What Good Are The Patents On Oil-Eating Bacteria Doing Us?
Nick Dynice writes in with this interesting thought on patents and oil-eating bacteria:
"I have been wondering if or when Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty's and GE's patented "oil-eating bacteria" will be used to help clean the gulf oil leak. This patent was originally rejected, and the rejection was challenged in the landmark case before the Supreme Court in Diamond v. Chakrabarty. This was the first attempt on a patent for living organism, and after some back and forth, the Supreme Court narrowly decided that living organisms could, in fact, be patented."
So, thanks to patents, there are now oil-eating bacteria than can help out BP in the Gulf, right? Not so fast, according to Scienceblogs:
"Not only did the engineered oil-eating bacteria spark debate on ownership and patentability of living organisms, but it also began discussion of how and when genetically engineered organisms could be released into the environment. This question is far from solved, with the fate of genetically engineered organisms to clean up oil or perform other kinds of environmental bioremediation still unclear as the possible harm to the environment by uncontrolled growth of engineered strains is weighed against the environmental impact of what the bacteria are designed to clean up. In the case of the oil-eating bacteria, the interests of the oil company also play a role--you don't want uncontrolled growth of an organism that eats your product getting into your wells. While such uncontrolled growth is unlikely because the bacteria need injection of other elemental fertilizers besides the carbon in the oil to grow, it is something that has been brought up. Importantly, however, the bacteria often just can't compete with the scale of the disaster alone. The bacterial metabolism of crude oil cannot move faster than the oil kills wildlife, but oil-eating bacteria have been and will continue to be part of the long-term clean-up process for oil spills." (5.4)