Some You Win, Some You Fight

The unaltered plants of Earth belong to all of Her peoples.  I am Sick of drug companies thinking they own the tissues of our bodies to use in experimental research, Withoutt asking our permission Before we have surgery.  And if they think they own individual, unaltered human genes and all of the unaltered Plant Kingdom too, then I don't know what to call it but obscene.

Cherokees and many other traditions say that plants either chose to be medicine for humans or that the Creator gave us plants to heal our bodies and minds.  Causing poor people suffering for profit is what this second message below looks like to me.

But, some we win and this Must also be recognized in order to keep trying!

Have you heard the good news?

ConocoPhillips announced last week that it will be cancelling its 2014 Arctic drilling

plans.

We think it's super important to get the word out about this decision. Can you help

us spread the word by sharing on Facebook?

Click here to share the good news with your friends on Facebook.

ConocoPhillipsNotDrillingInArctic

Thanks for all you do,

Angus and the team at SumOfUs.org

 SumOfUs is a world-wide movement of people like you, working together to hold corporations

accountable for their actions and forge a new, sustainable path for our global economy.

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Nestlé is claiming that it owns a natural cure that's been used for over 1,000 years

.

Tell Nestlé to stop trying to patent the natural cure-all, nigella sativa.

Sign the petition

Share on Facebook.

Nigella sativa -- more commonly known as fennel flower -- has been used as a cure-all

remedy for over a thousand years. It treats everything from vomiting to fevers to

skin diseases, and has been widely available in impoverished communities across the

Middle East and Asia.

But now Nestlé is claiming to own it, and filing patent claims around the world to

try and take control over the natural cure of the fennel flower and turn it into

a costly private drug.

Tell Nestlé: Stop trying to patent a natural cure!

In a paper published last year, Nestlé scientists claimed to “discover” what much

of the world has known for millennia: that nigella sativa extract could be used for

“nutritional interventions in humans with food allergy”.

But instead of creating an artificial substitute, or fighting to make sure the remedy

was widely available,

Nestlé is attempting to create a nigella sativa monopoly and gain the ability to

sue anyone using it without

Nestlé’s permission

. Nestlé has filed patent applications -- which are currently pending -- around the

world.

Prior to Nestlé's outlandish patent claim,

researchers in developing nations such as Egypt and Pakistan had already published

studies on the same curative powers Nestlé is claiming as its own.

 And Nestlé has done this before -- in 2011, it tried to claim credit for using cow’s

milk as a laxative, despite the fact that such knowledge had been in Indian medical

texts for a thousand years.

Don’t let Nestlé turn a traditional cure into a corporate cash cow.

This isn't surprising, considering Nestle has a long track record of not caring about

ethics. After all, this is the corporation that poisoned its milk with melamine,

purchases cocoa from plantations that use child slave labor, and launched a breast

milk substitute campaign in the 1970s that contributed to the suffering and deaths

of thousands of babies from poor communities.

But we also know that

Nestlé is sensitive to public outcry, and that it's been beaten at the patent game

before.

 If we act fast, we can put enough pressure on Nestlé to get it to drop its patent

plans before they harm anyone -- but if we want any chance at affecting Nestlé's

decision, we have to speak out now, while its patent claims are still under review.

Thanks for all you do,

Melanie, Claiborne and the team at SumOfUs.org

**********

More Information:

Business Standard:

Nestle claims patent on medical use of black cumin or kalaunji

, 4, April, 2013

Third World Network (PDF):

Food giant Nestlé claims to have invented stomach soothing use of habbat al-barakah (Nigella sativa)

, 6 July, 2012

 SumOfUs is a world-wide movement of people like you, working together to hold corporations

accountable for their actions and forge a new, sustainable path for our global economy.

You can follow us on

Twitter

, and like us on

Facebook

.

Was this email forwarded to you?

Click here

 to add yourself to SumOfUs.