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Biotechnology
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In the broadest sense of the term, “biotechnology” refers to any technological process
that essentially involves the use of biological systems. Biotechnology in this broad
sense is involved in many practices, such as making bread, brewing beer, and the
selective breeding of agricultural crops. Human beings have been involved in
biotechnology of this kind for more than 10,000 years.
Somewhat more specifically, “biotechnology” is sometimes used to refer to
technological processes that directly employ or manipulate biological systems using
modern scientific techniques. For example, the term may be applied to the process
of growing cells in a laboratory, or in vitro fertilization of ova, or the manipulation
of animal species so that they will produce chemicals needed for the development of
pharmaceutical products. Many new technologies available to facilitate human
reproduction are “biotechnology” in this sense.
But the term “biotechnology” is often used in a much more specialized way, to
refer to “genetic engineering.” Genetic engineering involves the manipulation of
organisms and biological systems by altering them at the genetic level (see genetically modified organisms). Biotechnology in this more narrow sense is a much
younger science, requiring specialized knowledge of cellular and molecular biology.
Genetic Engineering
Direct genetic manipulation was first done in 1973 by Paul Berg, a Stanford
biochemist who developed a procedure that made it possible to isolate a short
strand of DNA from one organism (a virus) and patch it into the genome of
The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, First Edition. Edited by Hugh LaFollette.
© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
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another (Yount 2008: 7). When this process is undertaken, the resultant strand
of DNA is called recombinant DNA, or rDNA. This rDNA will include novel
gene sequences that may include genes from different varieties or species. While
the process developed by Berg was cumbersome and difficult, the science of gene
splicing has been refined and improved. Berg’s process has been superseded by
more efficient methods. It is now possible to identify DNA sequences associated
with specific desirable traits, and to splice these sequenced strands into the
genome of another organism. In some cases, this has been done with great
precision. Researchers can often predict, with a significant degree of reliability, the phenotypic characteristics that will result from such basic molecular
genetic manipulation. This technology has a variety of different applications:
transgenic animals have been developed to produce pharmaceutical products,
and transgenic crops have been engineered to withstand pests and herbicides.
Efforts are presently underway to develop transgenic pigs that might be used as a
source of human transplant organs.
Not all genetic engineering involves transgenic manipulation – the transfer of
genetic material from one species to another. Some engineering processes
instead involve sysgenic or intragenic transfer of genetic material between varieties or individuals that are members of the same species. In other cases, genetic
engineering may involve no genetic transfer at all. It may instead involve the
manipulation of genetic material that governs the development of traits. For
example, such manipulation may be designed to activate developmental processes at different developmental stages, or to “turn on” genes at different points
in an organism’s development process. For example, some genetically engineered salmon grow much more rapidly than their wild relatives. The wild
salmon have a gene that “shuts off ” the swift growth that characterizes the early
developmental process, while the altered salmon have had this gene suppressed
so that they continue to grow larger much more quickly than they otherwise
would. The biotechnological process that made this possible did not involve the
transfer of genes from one organism to another. It instead involved manipulation of the process by which genes are “turned on” or “shut off ” during the
developmental process.
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Synthetic Biology
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For the most part, genetic modification techniques start with an existing organism,
and have proceeded by mixing and matching isolated “snips” of DNA, whether by
inserting snips from another organism or species, or by deleting genetic material
that was original (see synthetic life sciences). More recent technology allows
scientists to build strands of DNA from scratch, arranging the base pairs that
constitute it one by one. Using these techniques of what has come to be called
synthetic biology, some scientists anticipate that it may eventually be possible to
build living organisms from the ground up, starting with nonliving materials. Such
organisms would be genuine human inventions to a much greater extent than any
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other existing organisms, since their genetic makeup would very substantially be the
result of human decision and choice. Even where sequences used precisely mirror
those that appear naturally, their presence in a synthetic organism would be the
result of human decisions. While the science underlying synthetic biology is still in
an early stage of development, scientists at the J. Craig Venter Institute announced in
May 2010 that they had succeeded in constructing a self-replicating synthetic
bacterial cell (Ventner Institute 2010). This cell, named by its creators Mycoplasma
mycoides JCVI-syn1.0, is the first synthetic organism with its DNA entirely assembled
artificially.
Agricultural Biotechnology
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Biotechnology has led to dramatic changes in farming and agriculture. Transgenic
and genetically engineered organisms are regularly grown and consumed in the
United States, and increasingly throughout the world. The most common traits
produced by such engineering are pest and herbicide resistance. For example, much
of the maize grown in the United States has a gene from bacillus thuringensis (Bt)
spliced into the corn genome. The resultant Bt corn is toxic to insects like the corn
borer, but nontoxic to mammals. The Bt gene has also been spliced into the cotton
genome, producing boll-worm resistant cotton. Other crops have been engineered
for herbicide resistance. For example, roundup-ready© canola and soybean plants
have been engineered for resistance to the herbicide glyphosate. This makes it easier
for farmers to control weeds, since they can apply glyphosate to their fields to kill the
weeds without killing their crop. But critics of the technology point out that this
advantage may be associated with special costs, since farmers growing herbicideresistant crops may use more herbicides than they otherwise would (Thompson
1997; Comstock 2000; Avise 2004).
Other applications of these technologies have specific commercial uses. For
example, genetic engineering methods have been used to develop genetic use
restriction technologies (GURTS), which prevent farmers from replanting genetically
engineered crop varieties. When crops are grown from these varieties, the seeds
have been engineered to be sterile so that they cannot be saved and replanted from
year to year. This is advantageous for seed companies, since farmers must purchase
seeds every year. In this respect, GURTS are similar to nonbiotech hybrid crop
varieties, which produce seeds which, while not sterile, cannot be efficiently
replanted by the farmer. Hybrid varieties are highly productive, but seeds saved
from a hybrid crop are not themselves hybrid. When planted they have dramatically
lower yield than their parent stock.
Biotech crops are very common in many parts of the world, and increasingly
common globally. In the United States, for example, most processed foods include
ingredients from genetically engineered organisms and most people eat such
ingredients every day whether they realize it or not. But in other parts of the world,
people strive to avoid biotech foods, and have implemented regulations that restrict
the use of such ingredients.
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Biotechnology in Human Medicine
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Technological and scientific advances have dramatically changed the options
available for therapy and diagnosis of disease and disability, and present new
promises and challenges for human reproduction. Biotechnological advances have
resulted in new pharmaceutical products, and in new ways to produce pharmaceuticals using living cells and systems. Genetic analysis can be a valuable tool for
diagnosing the propensity for a number of serious disorders. The discovery of
genetic markers indicating high risk of breast cancer has been especially important
because it has enabled women to take preventive steps to reduce the associated risks.
So reliable are these markers that some women, on discovering that their genes put
them at increased risk, have opted for preemptive mastectomy to reduce the chance
of breast-cancer death. Biotech advances that facilitate diagnosis and cure of disease
and disability are widely used.
New developments in biotechnology provide new options for human reproduction.
For example, some genetic anomalies can be diagnosed at the embryonic stage of
development. Parents who find that an embryo carries a genetic anomaly or defect
may have a range of alternatives available to them: if the embryo was fertilized in
vitro – that is, if fertilization was done outside the womb by combining sperm and
ovum in the laboratory – they may apply genetic tests to the embryo before it is
implanted into the womb for gestation. This procedure is called pre-implantation
genetic diagnosis, or PGD. Where such tests reveal genetic defects, parents may
simply decide not to implant the embryo at all. It is also possible to diagnose genetic
irregularities after implantation, by sampling DNA from the developing embryo.
Where such testing shows the presence of significant genetic defects, some parents
choose to abort rather than to carry such an embryo to term. Such tests can also
provide benefits for parents who do not wish to select traits or abort an affected
embryo, since diagnosis may help parents to prepare in advance for a child who will
be affected by disability or genetic disease.
More extreme possibilities are already on the horizon of technological possibility.
For any well-understood genetic marker, embryos could be selected for the presence
of that marker. This introduces the possibility that parents can choose characteristics
of the children they will conceive. Cloning techniques could make it possible for
parents to insure that their children will be genetically identical to themselves.
Genetic engineering techniques could even be used to alter the characteristics of
children, whether to correct genetic defects or to induce genetic “enhancements.”
A distinction is often drawn between germline and somatic cell genetic interventions.
Somatic cell interventions may affect the genome of the individual whose genome is
altered, but any changes will not be passed on to that individual’s children. Germline
genetic interventions, on the other hand, would involve genetic changes that would
be passed on to children from generation to generation. The prospect of germline
genetic intervention raises special concerns since it introduces the possibility that
present use of biotechnology might eventually change the genetic characteristics of
the human species itself. While such interventions might be undertaken in the effort
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to reduce the incidence of genetic disability or disadvantage, they also raise the
concern that deleterious genetic changes might inadvertently be passed on to later
generations.
Ethics and Biotechnology
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Advances in biotechnology have provided some clear benefits. In agricultural
biotechnology the least controversial case may be that of genetically modified
papayas, altered so that they are resistant to the papaya ringspot virus, which are
credited with rescuing Hawaii papaya production from disaster (Avise 2004).
Biotechnology’s many contributions to medicine facilitate diagnosis and treatment
of many serious disorders. And genetic testing has resulted in a marked decline of
serious genetic disorders like cystic fibrosis, at least in developed nations where such
tests are widely available. But advances in biotechnology also raise important
questions of ethics and justice, and in many cases public regulation is appropriate to
control risks associated with technological advancements. Some critics of biotechnology raise ethical objections to different developments, and urge that regulation
may sometimes be appropriate even where risks are negligible.
Some discussions of biotechnology ethics (Comstock 2000; Thompson 1997)
distinguish intrinsic and extrinsic objections to this technology. Extrinsic objections
raise concerns about their safety, or about the consequences of the use of biotechnology. Intrinsic objections, on the other hand, argue that there is something inherent
in the technology itself, independent of any consequences that might arise from its
use, which makes this technology wrong or morally problematic from the start. For
example, the argument that genetically engineered crops are morally problematical
because they are “unnatural” is an intrinsic objection, while the argument that they
are problematical because their use may create human or environmental risks is an
extrinsic objection.
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Intrinsic concerns and objections to biotechnology are moral objections that are not
based on the consequences or risks that might result from the use of this technology.
For example, the charge that biotechnology is unnatural, that it involves playing
God, and Leon Kass’s (1997) charge that some biotechnological applications
appropriately inspire an attitude of repugnance can all be categorized as intrinsic
objections.
The argument that biotechnology is morally problematic because it is unnatural
has been criticized for its implicit assumption that what is unnatural is bad, or worse
than what is natural. Many human activities and inventions are “unnatural” in the
sense that they involve alterations of nature. In this sense, apples are natural, but
apple pie is not. Unless a reason can be given to explain why unnatural objects raise
moral concerns, arguments from the claim that biotechnology is unnatural must be
recognized to be incomplete.
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The argument that biotechnology involves “playing God” draws on the thought
that there are some activities or some areas of knowledge that human beings should
not pursue because they are Godlike or divine. These ideas have deep cultural roots,
and are present in the story of the Garden of Eden in the Judeo-Christian Bible, as
well as in the ancient Greek concept of hubris. But the argument is similar, in some
respects, to the argument from naturalness. In particular, one needs further
explanation to explain why biotechnology involves playing God but other ordinary
medical technology does not. Without a satisfactory explanation, this theological
objection to biotechnology cannot justify the judgment that biotechnology is
morally questionable.
Kass (1997) has argued that some applications of biotechnology inspire instinctive
repugnance, and that we should regard this attitude of repugnance as a kind of deep
knowledge or moral wisdom. For example, according to Kass, if we find the idea of
human cloning repugnant, we should regard our attitude as sufficient reason to
forbear from engaging in such a procedure and for imposing legislative restrictions
that would prevent others from doing so as well. Critics of this argument note that a
wide variety of different activities and behaviors have inspired repugnance, and that
such attitudes may simply reveal bias or prejudice on the part of those who experience
them, not deep moral wisdom. Before the civil rights movement, many people found
the idea of interracial marriage to be repugnant, but we now recognize this as
prejudice rather than wisdom. Thus critics urge that in the absence of a supporting
argument explaining and justifying our attitude, the fact that we find some
applications of biotechnology to be repugnant cannot by itself constitute an argument
against the use of biotechnology, or in favor of public regulation.
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Extrinsic Ethical Concerns about Biotechnology
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Extrinsic objections to biotechnology involve the effect that employment of this
technology might have for other values. For example, external concerns include
potential risks to human and environmental health that might result when such
technologies are employed. People sometimes express concern, for example, about
the environmental effects of transgenic crop varieties, and about the safety of foods
made from these crops. Such concerns are extrinsic in the sense that they are not
addressed at features of these technologies themselves. Such concerns focus our
attention on other values that may be put at risk when biotechnology is employed.
Critics often note that the external risks associated with biotechnology are
unknown. It is sometimes pointed out that biotech food varieties are rarely subject
to individual testing to guarantee food safety, but are instead categorized as safe
when they are judged to be sufficiently similar to other foods that are regularly
consumed and used. When new technologies are used for the first time, it is difficult
to make reliable judgments about the risks involved. And when the deployment of a
new technology involves releasing newly developed biotech organisms into the
environment, these risks may increase if the organisms in question can reproduce
and spread, or can interbreed with existing varieties.
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Expected Value: Measuring Extrinsic Risks and
Benefits of Biotechnology
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Because many of the products of biotechnology can self-reproduce, and because
many of them can have a profound influence on the lives of those who employ them,
they are often perceived to be associated with excess risk, or with risks of a special
kind. Defenders of biotechnology often point out that this perceived riskiness of
biotechnology may not reflect the actual risk: the products of biotechnology have
never precipitated environmental disaster, nor have they ever been the cause of
widespread damage to human health. But significant ethical issues arise when
measuring the risks, or evaluating the perceived risk associated with biotechnology.
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In ordinary risk–benefit analysis, the risk involved in the adoption of a technology
or a choice is the probability of an adverse outcome. Thus, in deciding whether to
adopt a new technology, one would assign values to the various possible outcomes
and multiply these values by the probability that the outcome in question will be
realized. The value of adoption of the technology is then represented as a function
of the values of the different outcomes and their associated probability values. Thus
a risk–benefit analysis for the introduction of a new biotech crop would need to
consider both the prospective benefits and risks involved in its adoption. Since many
people are worried that biotech crops may cause environmental damage, or that they
may impose risks on those who consume them, such an analysis will include evaluation of the probability that these negative effects will come to pass, along with a
value to represent the disvalue if they did. This negative value would be subtracted
from the probable benefits to find the expected value of introducing the technology.
For example, consider the values and risks involved in the introduction of a new
flood-resistant variety of biotech rice. Flood damage impairs rice harvests in many
poor areas of the world, so flood-resistant rice may be a great benefit for farmers.
But introducing this technology may also involve risks. The expected value of the
product must take into account our best available estimates concerning both the
risks and the benefits.
This method for evaluating risks and benefits has come under criticism for a
variety of different reasons. First, the outcome of a risk–benefit analysis crucially
depends on the values that are assigned to different outcomes, positive and negative.
But the assignment of such values is always controversial and may be different
depending on the interests of the person who performs the analysis. A second and
quite similar problem arises with the probability assignments, which may vary to
some extent depending on the beliefs and interests of the analyst. Thus advocates of
biotechnology may be likely to overestimate the likely benefits of the product while
undervaluing the risks and costs, while skeptics may overestimate the risks and costs
while undervaluing the benefits. Risk–benefit analyses are vulnerable to distortion at
several different points, and are liable to reflect the interests or beliefs of the analyst.
Third, as described here, such analyses do not take into account the distribution
of costs and benefits. It is sometimes argued that the benefits associated with the
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introduction of a new product mostly accrue to the industry producing it, and that
the risks and costs are often shifted onto consumers and bystanders. Finally, the
standard method for performing a risk–benefit analysis assumes that costs and
benefits can be represented in monetary values. But this assumption is highly questionable when the benefits and costs involved may include lives saved (or lost), or
the possibility of irrevocable environmental damage that might be mitigated or
caused by a new product.
Precautionary Principles
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In evaluating risks associated with biotechnology, it has sometimes been urged that
we should adopt a precautionary principle which would give greater weight to the
possible negative outcomes associated with the use of these technologies. There are
different forms a precautionary principle might take, but precautionary approaches
generally involve assigning advocates the burden to prove that a new technology is
safe instead of requiring skeptics the burden to prove that it is unsafe. They typically
emphasize the potential risks so that possible disadvantages of technological
implementation are given more weight than they would be assigned in an ordinary
expected-value analysis. While versions of the precautionary principle are represented in international and European law, different formulations of this principle
have different legal and practical implications. All of them, however, aim to protect
against possibly disastrous results from the use of biotechnology by prioritizing the
avoidance of potential disaster over the pursuit of valuable results.
Perhaps the weakest formulation of a precautionary principle is the one that
appears in the United Nations Conference Report on Environment and Development,
often called the “Rio Declaration,” since it was negotiated in Rio de Janiero in June
1992. Principle 15 of Annex I of this declaration states:
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In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely
applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or
irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for
postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.
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This formulation represents a weak precautionary principle because it does not
unambiguously assign the burden of proof associated with the introduction of new
technologies. It simply states that “scientific uncertainty” should not be regarded as
a sufficient reason for postponing measures to prevent environmental damage.
Since empirical science never generates certain results, it should be uncontroversial to claim, as this principle requires, that when the implementation of a new
technology involves a risk of “serious or irreversible damage” we need not wait
until our understanding of the potential damage is certain before we may require it
to be addressed.
Other versions of the precautionary principle have been introduced in the
European Commission, and in the 2000 Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, which
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focuses specifically on perceived risks associated with biotechnology. Article 11,
Section 8 of the Cartagena Protocol, negotiated in January 2000, states:
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Lack of scientific certainty due to insufficient relevant scientific information and
knowledge regarding the extent of the potential adverse effects of a living modified
organism on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity in the Party of
import, taking also into account risks to human health, shall not prevent that Party
from taking a decision, as appropriate, with regard to the import of that living modified
organism intended for direct use as food or feed, or for processing, in order to avoid or
minimize such potential adverse effects.
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Critics of the precautionary principle often urge that the principle is an inappropriate
and unreasonable requirement because decisions guided by its use will sometimes
be different from those prescribed by an ordinary expected-value analysis. The
principle is sometimes represented by both its critics and by its advocates as reflecting
a strong proscription against the introduction of any new product that might involve
serious risks. But the language used in existing statements of the precautionary
principle does not usually support this interpretation. As represented in the Rio
Declaration, the Cartagena Protocol, and other similar sources, most statements of
the precautionary principle merely remove “scientific uncertainty” as a sufficient
reason not to act to address risks to the environment or to human health that might
arise after the implementation of a new technology.
Law, Economics, and Regulation
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Other significant external concerns apply to the legal, regulatory, and economic
institutions that define property rights, control risks, and structure sale and purchase
of biotechnology. As biotech products gain increasing representation in global
markets, these institutions gain increasing influence in new aspects of the
environment, agriculture, medical care, and other aspects of human life, and death.
Regulatory institutions raise questions of economic efficiency and market freedom,
but also raise questions of justice, morality, and liberty.
Intellectual property (IP) rights include patents, copyright, plant protection
certificates, and other legal structures that are intended to provide protection for
inventors and creators, giving them exclusive rights over their creations (see intellectual property). In biotechnology, patents and other IP protections may cover
processes involved in the creation of new technologies, in drugs and other biotech
products, and even recombinant DNA sequences and whole organisms. Some have
argued that the extension of intellectual property in these areas is inappropriate. For
example, it has sometimes been argued that DNA patents are inappropriate because
DNA is natural and not a human creation. In most patent regimes, “products of
nature” are not eligible for patent protection because they are not creations or
inventions. In some cases, patent protections are written to cover rDNA but some
American courts have questioned the appropriateness of patents that cover unaltered
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human DNA, or covering diagnostic processes that involve examination of DNA
markers (e.g., Association for Molecular Pathology v. US Patent Trademark Office,
2010). The fate of such patents is presently uncertain in the United States and in
other legal systems as well. In the case of transgenic or sysgenic organisms, this
argument has considerably less force, as it is easier to identify the inventive step
when organisms have been manipulated through gene insertion.
A second objection urges that biotech patents and other IP are inappropriate
because they improperly “commodify life” (see commodification). By assigning
property rights in genes and genetically modified organisms, these critics urge, biotech patents over-extend the norms of market exchange into a domain where these
norms do not belong (Shiva 2001). While she is not expressly concerned with biotech patents, Radin (1996) argues that extending market norms to new areas where
they have not previously operated involves subtle changes that may have serious
consequences. These critics find persuasive the argument that we change the social
meaning of an object by making it into a commodity: for example, the meaning of
children and sex may change in societies that allow babies to be bought and sold, or
in societies that permit prostitution. It may be harder to understand, however, how
biotech patents could have a similarly profound influence on central social values.
There is in addition a third concern that biotech patents may exacerbate existing
inequalities between poor and developed nations (Shiva 2001) (see biopiracy).
Most intellectual property rights are generated and owned by people in developed
nations, but many of those who could gain from the use of patented biotech products are poor people in developing nations. This raises the concern that the world
may, in the future, be even more strikingly divided into two groups: the technological “haves” and the technology “have nots.” As the benefits of technology stimulate
growth and wealth in developed nations, there is concern that poor people and poor
nations may be left further and further behind.
In response to these concerns, defenders of biotech IP (e.g., Rosenberg 2004)
emphasize the cost of research and the benefits of advances in biotechnology. The
research and development required to bring new biotech products from inception to
marketing is a long and expensive process. In the absence of incentives provided by
intellectual property rights, it is likely that many companies would not pursue this
expensive research at all. But the products of biotech research are valuable, and
sometimes life-saving for those who use and consume them. The costs associated
with biotech intellectual property, some would argue, are fully repaid by the value of
the products that result from it. Further, patent protections have a limited life span,
and once patent protection has expired anyone can freely produce or sell the patented
item without fee or license. For these reasons, defenders of biotech patents and other
intellectual property protections argue that these institutions will ultimately improve
the lives of people in the less developed countries as well as serving the interests of
those who hold them.
SEE ALSO: agricultural ethics; biopiracy; commodification; eugenics;
genetic testing; genetically modified organisms; intellectual property;
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nature and the natural; patents; reproductive technology; synthetic
life sciences
REFERENCES
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Association for Molecular Pathology v. US Patent Trademark Office. United States District
Court Southern District of New York, March 29, 2010.
Avise, J. 2004. The Hope, Hype, and Reality of Genetic Engineering. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Comstock, G. 2000. Vexing Nature: On the Ethical Case Against Agricultural Biotechnology.
Boston: Kluwer.
Kass, L. 1997. “The Wisdom of Repugnance,” New Republic, vol. 216.
Radin, M. 1996. Contested Commodities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rosenberg, A. 2004. “On the Priority of Intellectual Property in Biotechnology,” Politics,
Philosophy, and Economics, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 77–95.
Shiva, V. 2001. Protect or Plunder: Understanding Intellectual Property Rights. New York: Zed
Books.
Thompson, P. 1997. Food Biotechnology in Ethical Perspective. New York: Blackie Academic
and Professional.
Ventner Institute 2010. “First Self-Replicating Synthetic Bacterial Cell. H:\ ENCYC \ JCVI
First Self-Replicating, Synthetic Bacterial Cell Constructed by J_ Craig Venter Institute
Researchers.mht, May 20. Accessed June 2010.
Yount, L. 2008. Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering. New York: Facts On File and Infobase
Publishing.
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FURTHER READINGS
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Andrews, L. 2001. Future Perfect: Confronting Issues about Genetics. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Bush, N. 2005. “Genetically Modified Plants are Not ‘Inventions’ and Are, Therefore, Not
Patentable,” Drake Journal of Agricultural Law, vol. 10, pp. 388–482.
Diamond v. Chakrabarty. 447 US Supreme Court. 303 no. 79–136 (June 16, 1980).
Glannon, W. 2001. Genes and Future People: Philosophical Issues in Human Genetics. Boulder:
Westview Press.
Harris, J. 1998. Clones, Genes, and Immortality. New York: Oxford University Press.
Harris, J. 2007. Enhancing Evolution: The Case for Making Better People. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Lien, M., and B. Nerlich 2004. The Politics of Food. New York: Berg.
Magnus, D. 2002. “Intellectual Property and Agricultural Biotechnology,” in D. Magnus et al.
(eds.), Who Owns Life? Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, pp. 265–76.
Mbegoji, I. 2006. Global Biopiracy: Patents, Plants, and Indigenous Knowledge. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press.
Menikoff, J. 2001. Law and Bioethics. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
National Research Council 2002. Environmental Effects of Transgenic Plants. Washington,
DC: National Academy Press.
Pence, G. 2002. Designer Food. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
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Sandel, M. 2007. The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in an Age of Genetic Engineering.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Sease, E., and R. Hodgson 2006. “Plants are Properly Patentable Under Prevailing US Law
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