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Two new guidelines issued by France’s national ethics committee oppose
the marketing of blood products and the patenting of the human genome.

Its advice on blood products, which can be marketed in Europe under
an EC directive, warns that ‘after blood, all tissues and organs would be
in danger of becoming items of trade’. The guideline, issued just ahead
of the Maastricht summit, said: ‘The success of European unification cannot
come about unless ethical values are taken into account just as much as
economic values’.

The committee’s ruling on the genome states that ‘all the information
contained in the human genome belongs to the common heritage of humanity:
it is the field of knowledge which cannot be covered by a monopoly’.

The committee also called for the principle of open access to genome
data banks to be preserved.