COLGATE ACCUSED OF STEALING ANCIENT TOOTHPASTE

“BIOPIRACY”: COLGATE ACCUSED OF STEALING
THOUSAND-YEAR-OLD INDIAN TOOTHPASTE RECIPE

www.news.com.au - Indian activists are accusing Colgate of ‘biopiracy’ for allegedly stealing and patenting a 1,000-year-old folk recipe for toothpaste. This legal dispute between the U.S. and India over a herbal toothpaste has Colgate Palmolive in the center of it. Colgate, the world’s largest producer of toothpaste, patented a tooth cleaning powder in the hope that it would take the multibillion-dollar Indian oral hygiene market by storm. However, Indian activists claim that the patent is bogus because the ingredients - including clove oil, camphor, black pepper and spearmint - have been used for the same purpose for hundreds, “if not thousands,” of years on the subcontinent. The dispute is likely to become a test case for who owns India’s folk medicines - a repository potentially worth billions. The American household goods giant was granted the patent in the U.S. in June for what it claimed was a groundbreaking “red herbal dentifrice.” The patent, the Indian activists allege, is the latest act of “biopiracy” - whereby Western corporations plunder techniques, plants or genes used in the emerging world for centuries, for commercial profit.

“This toothpowder is classical in origin,” said Devender Triguna, the president of the Association of Manufactures of Ayurvedic Medicines, an Indian body that promotes traditional remedies. It is demanding that the Indian government take legal action against Colgate. “The ingredients date back to antiquity. They have been used by the common Indian man for thousands of years. So how can it possibly be patented?” Triguna asked. Colgate did not respond to a request for comment. However, its patent filing argues that the use of red iron oxide, which is less abrasive than ingredients in traditional toothpaste, is new, so the old recipe becomes also “new”.


The patent, the Indian activists allege, is the latest act of “biopiracy” - whereby Western corporations plunder techniques, plants or genes used in the emerging world for centuries, for commercial profit. According to Colgate the old recipe has become new, and through this “legal contraption”, the American company intends no to pay royalties. Neem tree’s leaves are used in India since ancient times as a spice and its twigs are used as cavity preventing tooth brushes. Apart from being highly antiseptic, evil spirits cannot go near a Neem tree, and therefore, demonic specters are not able to be close to a person whose name is “Nimai”.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

In 1486, ... Gauranga Mahaprabhu accepted Jagannath Mishra and Sachidevi as his father and mother and appeared in the holy dham of Shri Mayapur. It is said that witches, evil female spirits and other powerful demonic specters cannot go near a Neem tree. Out of their feelings of maternal love, Sachi and the other women named him Nimai in order that he can be protected from any inauspiciousness. ... When the time came for Nimai’s name-giving ceremony, Nilambara Chakravarti and other learned men in the community called him Vishvambhara, which is thus his principal name, while the women gave him the name Nimai. This latter name was given because Neem leaves have a bitter taste and are said to keep death away, and they wished to bless Nimai with a long life. The name-giving ceremony is also the occasion when a child’s tastes and tendencies are tested. Jagannath placed rice, puffed rice, gold, silver and a manuscript of the Shrimad Bhagavatam before the child, who ignored everything to reach out for the Bhagavatam. All were delighted by Nimai’s choice.

Śrīla Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha Mahārāja :
“Associates of Shri Chaitanya”
Volume One – “Shri Jagannath Mishra”
http://www.sreecgmath.org/scgmtimes/scgmbbtm.php