Abdallah S. Daar, Halla Thorsteinsdóttir, Richard D. Smith, Peter A. Singer
University of Toronto, Canada
Goods can be classified along a spectrum from purely private to purely public goods, with intermediate categories such as club goods. Public goods are defined as being non-excludable and non-rival in consumption. Global public goods are those that exhibit a significant degree of publicness across national boundaries.
Genomics has several important features that characterize it as a global public good [1,2]. Using the concept of global public goods has value in calling attention to an emerging 'genomics divide' [3], on dissecting the elements that cause this divide, and on focusing attention on means of addressing it.
The Ethics Committee of the Human Genome Organization has recently developed a statement on genomic databases. The statement adopts the principle that genomic databases be considered as global public goods. We will introduce the concept of global public goods and highlight the features of genomics and genomic databases that we argue make it appropriate for them to be called global public goods [4].
1. Thorsteinsdottir, H., Daar, AS, Smith, RD., and Singer, PA. Genomics - A Global Public Good? Lancet. In Press
2. Thorsteinsdottir H, Daar AS, Smith RD, Singer PA. Do Patents Encourage or Inhibit Genomics as a Global Public Good? In Knoppers BM, Caulfield TA and Laberge C (eds.), Proceedings 3rd International Conference - DNA Sampling: Ethical, Legal and Social Issues. To be published by Kluwer Academic Publishers. (In press)
3. Singer PA, Daar AS. Harnessing Genomics and Biotechnology to Improve Global Health Equity. Science 2001; 294: 87-9.
4. HUGO Statement on Genomic Databases. (2002). Ethics Committee of HUGO
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