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How do you say No NAIS in Japanese?
Say no to the National Animal Identification System (NAIS)
The USDA and the agricultural business giants have been crafting a national animal
identification scheme that threatens the freedoms of the citizens of the United States of America.
The National Animal Identification System (NAIS) is the creation of various businesses, such as Monsanto Company,
to monopolize American food production by using fear tactics to advance their agenda.
The NAIS scheme was not created by any act of our government. NAIS is merely a presumptuous bureaucratic dictate.
So who is Monsanto Company?
In the late 1970s, Monsanto developed a longer-term strategy that would enable it to reduce its dependence on
low-return petroleum-based products. A central feature of the strategy involved an increase in activity in the areas
of nutritional chemicals and agricultural products and a move into the new area of health care. Biotechnology,
particularly genetic engineering, was attractive since it affected all three of these areas. In 1979 Monsanto hired
Dr. Howard A. Schneiderman, a biochemist from the University of California, Irvine, who became a senior Vice-President
and Chief Scientist in charge of the Corporate Research and Development Division. It was Schneiderman who spearheaded
the company's drive into biotechnology and genetic engineering. To facilitate its move into new areas, the company's
R&D budget was increased considerably, from 2.6% of sales in 1979 to 5% in 1983 and 7% in 1985 (Monsanto, 1985).
In 1985, 57% of R&D expenditure was in the area of life sciences. With 1985 sales of $6,747 million, the R&D budget
for 1986 is around $470 million, implying a research budget of about $270 million in the life sciences.
Monsanto has followed a number of paths in its attempt to build its biotechnology-related capabilities. To begin
with, Monsanto has established links with universities. Most important of these has been a link with the School of
Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis. Monsanto provided the university with $23.5 million over five years
in return for cooperative research projects in biotechnology. One benefit the company has received from this relationship
is G.D. Searle & Co.'s development of atrial peptides, which control high blood pressure; these compounds were originally
isolated and identified by Professor Philip Needleman, Head of the Pharmacology Department at the University. Monsanto
has signed research agreements with a number of other universities, including Harvard, Oxford, and Rockefeller
Universities. The company's university links were the subject of a congressional enquiry, headed by then
Congressman Al Gore, which concluded that the relationship was not detrimental to the university system.
Intellectual Property and Research
The company's univeristy links also show an interesting intellectual property rights issue. Example, with the
Monsanto-Washington University link is intended to facilitate cooperative work between company and university
scientists working collaboratively on research projects. An eight-member advisory committee divided equally between
Monsanto researchers and Washington University faculty makes the final decision regarding research funding.
The agreement stipulates that 30% of the research will be basic research, while 70% will be research directly applicable
to human disease. The United States Congress, Office of Technology Assessment Report on Biotechnology (1984) summarized
the provisions regarding intellectual property rights: 'Washington University faculty members will be at liberty
to publish results of any research done under the Monsanto funding. Monsanto will exercise the right of prior review of
draft materials, because they may contain potentially patentable technical developments. If they do, Monsanto can
request a delay of submission for publication or other public disclosure in order to begin the patent process'.
Patent rights will be retained by Washington University but Monsanto will have exclusive rights to licences.
If Monsanto chooses not to license a patent then the university will be free to issue the licence to others.
Royalties will go to Washington University and not to the individual researchers, but will normally go to their
laboratory.
The Database
Monsanto then gives the universities access to their vast corporate digital library initiatives. Monsanto's online
solution was a pioneering effort that provides a vast knowledge sharing through the Internet that includes data and
solutions for:
- a basic technology infrastructure including some or all of the following: email, Intranets, search engines, and groupware-like collaboration.
- One or more separate repositories for capturing and storing critical information, typically in the form of documents.
- Subject matter experts who format, catalog, and administer submissions to the repositories and act as researchers to aid in retrieval of needed information.
Monsanto and Biotechnology
Along with universities, Monsanto has been linking with biotechnology firms through acquisition and mergers,
marketing agreements, contractual agreements to provide assets, and joint ventures.
One such company Monsanto has developed a relationship with is Mitsubishi Pharma Corp. Mitsubishi itself has an
interesting corporate history.
The smaller businesses that eventually merged into Mitsubishi Pharma Corporation are worth mentioning.
Green Cross Corporation was founded in 1950 as Japan's first commercial blood bank and became a diversified
international pharmaceutical company producing ethical drugs for delivery or administration by doctors and
healthcare workers. It included war criminals such as Kitano Masaji who performed human experimentation in
Unit 731 of the Japanese military during World War II.
The company merged into Yoshitomi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd On April 1, 1998, and renamed to Welfide Corporation
on April 1, 2000. Finally Welfide Corp. and Mitsubishi-Tokyo Pharmaceutical Inc. were mereged to form Mitsubishi Pharma Corp.
on October 1, 2001.
Throughout their history of company names, there follows a history of tainted blood scandals.
Japan's HIV-tainted blood scandal, known in Japanese as, yakugai eizu jiken, refers between one and two thousand
cases in the 1980s in which Japanese patients with haemophilia contracted HIV via tainted blood products.
The man that was found guilty of professional negligence resulting in these deaths, Matsushita Renzo,
former head of the Ministry of Health and Welfare's Pharmaceutical Affairs Bureaum, became president
of Green Cross and after serving his jail time.
Nanotechnology Micro-scale machines, such as DNA chips
The term "nanotechnology" was named in 1974 by Tokyo Science University professor Norio Taniguchi,
author of "Nanotechnology: Integrated Processing Systems for Ultra-Precision and Ultra-Fine Products".
Before Bill Clinton left office, he authorized an 84% increase in the government's investment in nanotechnology research
and development, National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) and made it a top priority.
Genes and the products of genetic engineering can be patented and owned. In 1980, two federal landmark
decisions influenced the business side of biotechnology. A Supreme Court ruling allowed
patents to be granted for genetically engineered organisms, processes of transforming cells
and expressing proteins, and genes themselves. More recently, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals
reversed a Patent Office decision and ruled that DNA sequences that code for particular proteins
are patentable. The Bayh Dole Act rules that all intellectual property resulting from federal funding
resides in the university, rather than in the government. Unless, the univeristy link is linked
to funding by a company, such as Monsanto.
This is what is fueling the drive for a major restructuring of the agriculture, food, and fiber industries.
The Bio and now Nanotechnology sciences have presented fundamental problems for the protection of intellectual
property rights. As the main OECD publication on patent protection has put it (Beier et al., 1985):
"In the past the patent system rested safely on a semantically clear [and] objectively defensible separation between (patentable)
invention' and (non-patentable) 'discovery'. The recent development of biotechnology where some scientific discoveries could be turned into commercial
products almost immediately has blurred this separation. This may have far-reaching legal and practical consequences."
Monsanto has sued hundreds of farmers for saving gene-altered seeds from each year's harvest to replant
their fields the following season -- a practice farmers have followed for years. In fact,
three-quarters of the world's growers are subsistence farmers who rely on saved seed. Monsanto claims
"seed piracy" and said replanting the company's patented, gene-altered seeds violates a three-year-old
company rule requiring that farmers buy the seeds fresh every year. Monsanto does not sell its engineered
seeds in the traditional sense but "leases" them, in effect, for one time use only.
The Creation of National Animal Identification System
Monsanto and other agricultural business giants have successfully laid the ground work to implement a
"lease" on all of the United State's agriculture. The NAIS plan requires two types of mandatory registration
for everyone who owns even just one animal. First, owners must register their name, home address, telephone number and Global Positioning System (GPS)
coordinates of their 'premise' in a vast corporate digital library. Secondly, in order for any animal to leave
its 'premise', the owner will be required to obtain an ID number for it which will be kept in a vast corporate digital library
and have the animal microchipped.
The NAIS requirements have yet been forthright as to whether DNA samples will be required in the future.
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