Brussels, 07/01/2002 (Agence Europe) - The Standing Committee of European Doctors, which represents 1.4 million doctors throughout the EU, reacted to the European Commission's consultation document entitled "Towards a strategic vision for life sciences and biotechnologies" (see EUROPE of 6 September). In its comments, the Standing Committee mainly covers:
- The use of genetic testing for seeking individual characteristics that may be used in determining aptitude for jobs, insurance risks and actions regarding health, mainly with regard to prevention. "This question is firstly a question for society but doctors must be vigilant that they are never asked to lend their support to initiatives which would be contrary to the ethical foundations of their profession (e.g. the protection of people's integrity and privacy)", states the Standing Committee.
- Innovation and competitiveness: the complementary nature of public and private research is crucial in the health domain, note European doctors, who recall that the private initiative is based on criteria of profitability and return on investments. "The Commission must show itself to be active - as it did for orphan drugs - to find a new balance to the public/private share of research into biotechnological applications in the health domain, without giving firms the almost exclusive responsibility for operating in these domains", it is stated in the document.
- Patentability: The Standing Committee, which had already denounced the ambiguity of the 1998 Directive on the patentability of biotechnological inventions, is firmly opposed to the patenting of discoveries (as opposed to inventions) such as the descriptions of genome sequences whether of the human genome or the genome of other living organisms, both animal and vegetable. Only processes leading to the invention of products (in medicine, genetic tests and products with a therapeutic use) should be patentable, say doctors. They go on to state: "it seems increasingly clear that the argument according to which the patentability of genome sequences itself encourages research, which benefits the final beneficiaries, is fallacious. Curiously, the consultation document skirts these questions which should, however, be one of the Commission's greatest concerns at the current time".