Corporate control of scientific inquiry

In a recent patent infringement lawsuit involving southern Indiana farmer Vernon Bowman versus Monsanto, an American multinational agricultural biotech corporation, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Monsanto Company.

This ruling effectively allows the company to claim patent rights to their genetically modified organism seeds, even after the seeds have been purchased by a farmer.

According to this ruling, farmers must purchase new GMO seeds every year, and any who resist will likely face a lawsuit from the multi-billion dollar company for patent
infringement.

But, why should IU students care about this Supreme Court case involving some farmer and his seed supplier?

We don’t even have a college of agriculture.

IU students should be alarmed by this Supreme Court ruling because of the dangerous precedent it sets for the power of corporations to influence what is done with their patented products. This includes scientific research at the university level.

According to 26 prominent university scientists in a statement to the Environmental Protection Agency as quoted in The Chronicle of Higher Education, this patent protection for Monsanto means that “no truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions regarding the technology.”

Funding for scientific research on GMO seeds is essential to understanding their potential health and environmental effects, but this ruling undermines a central tenet of any university: to pursue scientific inquiry without outside obligation or restriction.

With a vested interest in positive publicity, companies like Monsanto have been able to block necessary research on the health effects of GMO seeds.

Is this alarming to anyone else?

National Public Radio states that nearly 94 percent of soybeans grown in Indiana are Monsanto soybeans.

Are we comfortable that almost all of the GMO soybeans consumed in this state have not been thoroughly researched?

This Supreme Court ruling represents a public health issue, a freedom of speech issue, and, at the most fundamental level, an attack on the central mission of the
university.

No scientific research should be restricted because some company has determined that its profit is at stake.

University research is meant to benefit the greater good for society, not to aid in the aims for some for-profit company.

­— bridgela@indiana.edu