Joint Center for Bioethics, University of Toronto
Emerging Medical, Environmental Breakthroughs Hold Revolutionary Promise; Experts Call for UN Body to Help Share Knowledge Worldwide
A global campaign to foster the universal sharing of innovative medical and
environmental breakthroughs created through the world’s emerging knowledge of genomics could save tens of millions of lives per year in developing countries, scientists and ethicists say in a major new report to the United Nations.
Tools being produced through genomics – the powerful wave of health-related life sciences catalyzed by the Human Genome Project – have enormous potential to improve health and living standards in developing countries, the report says. Properly harnessed, these breakthroughs could reduce dramatically the gap between developed and developing countries.
“Every year 11 million children die before reaching their 5th birthday. Recent rapid advances in genomics and related biotechnologies offer radically improved tools to help remedy this global tragedy,” says Peter Singer, MD, Director of the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics and an author of the report, Genomics and Global Health, for the UN Millennium Project’s Science and Technology Task Force.
“We need a governance mechanism that fosters a balance between the global public goods characteristics of genomics knowledge and the private goods nature of its application,” says co-author Elizabeth Dowdeswell, former UN Under Secretary-General and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme.
The experts call for creation of a UN-sponsored Global Genomics Initiative (GGI), promoting genomics as a “global public good” and enlisting governments, private companies and other organizations from developed and developing countries alike to support genomics research and learning worldwide.
“The GGI would give developing countries access to knowledge essential to their reaping the benefits of genomics for development,” says co-author Abdallah S. Daar, MD, co-director of the Canadian Program on Genomics and Global Health at the JCB.
“It would promote actions needed at a global level, strengthen capacity in biotechnology worldwide by increasing the international exchange of know-how, and encouraging partnerships between countries.”
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