When a South African quasi-government organization, CISR, or the Center for Industrial and Scientific Research, told the British company Phytopharm about the Hoodia plant, it had no idea it would set in motion a chain of events that would lead to political protests. Or so it is said.
Phytopharm patented the P57 molecule in the Hoodia plant, which has potent appetite suppression properties and may be the basis for an upcoming diet pill. In clinical studies already conducted, the Hoodia gordonii plant was proven to reduce daily calorie intake, with no side effects. The plant had been used by South African bushmen for years to suppress hunger. Unfortunately, this appears to be part of the problem. The bushmen claim their knowledge has been stolen, and that the patent system is intended to, or has been used for, exploiting people such as themselves in developing nations around the world.
Hoodia, which is a not a cactus but a spiny succulent, is the latest pawn in an ideological chess game, with all sides seemingly targeting the Western ideals of capitalism and intellectual property. News articles attacking "exploitation" by the west of native peoples followed Phytopharm's talk of its patent, with the usual denounciations of there not being affordable AIDS medications heaped on the fire. Never mind that when western nations have sent help to AIDS-plagued nations in Africa it has gone, essentially to waste, with some cultures even refusing to use basic protection during sexual intercourse. Against this background of refusal even to take basic precautions, AIDS drugs, even imported en masse, would be little help. And one thing has nothing to do with another; the fact that Western nations are not willing to essentially throw away expensive medications has nothing to do with the ravings of these activists against the patent system. And even if it did, the logic of the AIDS claim is just as flawed; why should AIDS medication be given virtually free to peoples that take known risks, when innocent children infected in the U.S. still need treatment which can be paid for? Yet, this accusation is thrown in, as if the West deserves condemnation for others' carelessness.
This raises a particular issue. The case has been used by activists to rail against the entire system of patents, and capitalism itself, never mind that the alleged mistreatment of the Bushmen began with what is essentially a government-controlled organization, not private industry.
It is perhaps an argument that seems more rational than the communist rantings of violent leftists rioting against “globalism”. However, the ideas are essentially the same, and when reduced to their basic forms, with the inflammatory emotion removed, the logic is no better.
Was Hoodia stolen from the bushmen, and is the patent system a conspiracy against indigenous peoples? This is what activists – and some sympathetic media – would like readers to believe. But the truth is far from thus. In reality, it is the media and the activists, who are exploiting the bushmen – to act out the latest installment of their anti-capitalist agenda. It is no coincidence that the anarchist, communist, and far-left rioters who seem to stake out every global economic gathering use similar logic to the lawyers, reporters, and professional but seemingly respectable agitators who seem to have taken up the “cause” of the bushmen.
All they have done is replace the class-warfare of traditional anti-capitalist dogma with ethnic-racial-cultural warfare. The posited “victim” is now the Bushmen, not the Proletariat, but the argument still target capitalism and individual freedom, for the same reasons.
The reasons these arguments do not hold up now are the same reasons they have not held up in the past, when mouthed by card-carrying Communists and Socialists, or the quasi-socialists within the Democratic party, who like to appeal to the most rowdy common denominator amongst their hard-left base.
The patent system exists not to “exploit” others, but to protect one’s own work from exploitation. If a person [or company] tests, experiments with, and ends up designing a product – be it an automobile motor or a drug ingredient – do they not have a right to have this protected from others cashing in on it? That is what the patent system exists to protect; the innovations of the mind. It is primarily in the West that we put such a premium on intellectual achievement.
The patent system is no more targeted towards the bushmen than towards any other group. It could not be, because the bushmen pose no threat of infringement. Living an isolated, native existence, the bushmen could not possibly design and produce a medicinal product using the experimental scientific knowledge of the company who patented the P57 molecule. Even if they had the scientific background, they have not the equipment.
But by the same logic as a company can get a working patent on its efforts, shouldn’t the bushmen’s traditional knowledge of Hoodia’s hunger-fighting ability, which led to everything else, also be protected from “exploitation” by companies who want to experiment and prove it so they can sell a product based upon it?
The answer is no. The answer is no, because this knowledge – correct though it may be – is not derived from deliberate experimentation, it is not the product of the mind, or rational inquiry, but rather knowledge handed down by forbearers, a cultural hearsay that just happens to work in practice. Many other “traditional” tactics, from medicine men’s hallucinations to questionable concoctions, are not particularly effective. Should accidental knowledge be given the same protection as deliberately and painstakingly acquired understanding of the natural world?
This, is the essence of the patent system; it is not the invention that is being protected, but the processes needed to create it. It is the thought, the mind, that is being safeguarded against disenfranchisement from its own efforts.
The bushmen may have a practical working knowledge of Hoodia and other natural substances, but the Bushman who knows that Hoodia fights hunger, because he was told so by his elders and it happens to work when he tries it, doesn’t really have to engage in any process to acquire this knowledge. It is given him part and parcel of his culture, just as his religion or his language. Are we to believe that medicinal knowledge taken on faith, which just “happens” to work, is the same thing -- either as a process, or in consideration due -- as deliberate scientific process?
A valid argument can work in any similar context. So transpose the bushmen's "traditional" methodology to an American pharmaceutical company. Suppose Acme Medicine, Inc. (a fictitious corporation) had decided to market Drug X (a fictitious drug) to, say, cure cardiac disease. Suppose there were no clinical trials done, no laboratory tests. Suppose Mr. Smith of Acme Corp. went before the FDA and requested approval based on the following argument: “My father and his father and his father all used this (Drug X) to treat chest pain, so I feel it will work for treating heart disease.” Do you think the Food and Drug Administration would give Mr. Smith approval to sell the drug? Or do you think Mr. Smith could apply for and receive a patent? Patents are on the processes needed to achieve the result, and there is no porcess involved in hand-me-down knowledge. Heritage, yes, but process, no.
Just as latter-day communists had no respect for the human mind, neither do their contemporaries. Their ethnic-racial-cultural warfare is just the latest installment of a battle lost years ago, only they refuse to admit it.
If there is any exploitation going on in the use of Hoodia, it is the activists who are exploiting the bushmen, to target the most basic tenets of Western civilization.
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