St. Jude's Childrens Research Hospital (Memphis, Tennessee)
Nominated for Worst betrayal
Monday 28 April 2008
Reasons for this nomination
St. Jude's has taken advantage of its status as a WHO Collaborating Centre for pandemic influenza studies by filing patent applications on influenza genes that it has received by virtue of its allegedly public interest program. WHO, remarkably, has taken no (public at least) action in response to piracy attempts by St. Jude's, thus apparently lending intergovernmental sanction to Jude's biopiracy.
The outrage here is the betray of global public trust: In the face of a possible influenza pandemic, a WHO Collaborating Centre is profiting from its designation as such by WHO, and WHO is ignoring the problem.
Supporting info
In addition to owning influenza-related patents such as "reverse genetics" intellectual property used to create influenza vaccines (licensed to MedImmune / AstraZeneca) , St. Jude's has specifically claimed a Vietnamese H5N1 HA (hemagglutinin) gene, as well as any other potentially pandemic H5 HA gene with a single base change (1 base out of ~1750 in the gene).
See: Some Intellectual Property Issues Related to H5N1 Influenza Viruses, Research and Vaccines (July 2007)