Watch research, warns Sir Tom
Islanders used as guinea pigs, he says

VETERAN scientist and former Prime Minister Sir Tom Davis says the Pacific region and its people have been used by drug companies as guinea pigs.
Sir Tom blames some of the health problems in the Cooks on trials carried out by “well meaning” researchers and drug companies.
Sir Tom made the comments on Auckland Pacific radio station Niu FM. He was speaking after the Government appointed Caroline Tiria as director of a new office to monitor all research in the Cook Islands.
Pacific people need to start thinking of their DNA as their own property, New Zealand-based Cook Islander Dr Kiki Maoate told Niu FM. Dr Kiki Maoate has been involved in the bio-theft debate in the Cooks.
DNA
Niu FM reported him as saying people in the Pacific region don't realise that already much of their DNA has been collected by genetic researchers over the years.
DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms, according to the US National Library of Medicine. It provides information available for building and maintaining an organism, similar to the way in which letters of the alphabet appear in a certain order to form words and sentences.
Genetic farming and research in the Pacific has also come under fire this past week with the release of a new book by Aroha Mead and Steven Ratuva.
Pacific Genes and Life Patents documents cases where researchers have taken DNA material from people in the Pacific and used it in ways indigenous communities would never have agreed to.
Ratuva, from Fiji, said Pacific people have a depth of knowledge which they've taken for granted. They now need to be protected because foreign companies are using it to make money, he said.
He said Pacific governments need to start legislating to protect knowledge of the environment before drug companies or researchers steal it.
Mead, a senior lecturer at Victoria University in Wellington, said of the Cook Islands moves to monitor all research in the country: “That's a good step forward. I hope more governments will do this."

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