But DDT is a health safety net to many nations in Africa and Latin America. Mosquito-borne tropical diseases have occurred with a vengeance in recent years, even some that had seemed nearly eradicated, and DDT remains the cheapest and least acutely toxic weapon against mosquitoes. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), every year 300 million to 500 million people become ill with malaria and between 1.5 million and 2.7 million people die from it. WHO approves spraying DDT inside houses in order to kill mosquitoes. At the Montreal meeting, WHO presented a paper that called for reducing, but not eliminating, use of DDT. However, many environmental groups represented at the meeting advocated phasing out use of DDT by 2007. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) presented a report with examples of alternative methods for fighting malaria. "Our report shows it is possible to completely ban DDT and work to eradicate malaria in ways that protect the environment and human health," says Clifton Curtis, director of the WWF-U.S. Global Toxics Program. Alternatives include eliminating standing water, biological control of mosquitoes, and applying other insecticides. The Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA) agrees with WHO'S position. "A lot of this is a matter of money," says Frederick C. McEldowney, CMA's director of international issues. The question isn't whether substitute pesticides or sanitary practices could stop malaria, he says. They could. But most alternative measures are more expensive than DDT. Compared with DDT—which is still produced in Mexico, Russia, China, and India—the other 11 POPs present less of an obstacle to an international agreement. Dioxins and furans are not made deliberately. Velsicol Chemical, the last known producer of heptachlor and chlordane, stopped making them last year. Russia, which continues to manufacture PCBs for use in transformers, has promised to halt production by 2005. Argentina is still producing a small amount of mirex. The remaining POPs, it appears, are no longer made. At the Montreal meeting, the participating countries worked on protocols to phase out only these 12 chemicals. But they set up committees to develop criteria for adding more substances to the POPs list and methods to deal with obsolete stocks of banned pesticides. Treaty negotiations are expected to conclude by 2000. Bette Hileman
Challenging Chinese students
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During his trip to China, President Bill Clinton urged students at Peking University to "make it your mission to ensure today's progress does not come at tomorrow's expense. China's remarkable growth in the past two decades has come with a toxic cost—pollutants that foul the water you drink and the air you breathe. The cost is not only environmental, it is also serious in terms of the health consequences to your people and in terms of the drag on economic growth.... This is a huge chal lenge for you, for the American people, and for the future of the world, and it must be addressed at the university level, because political leaders will never be willing to adopt environmental measures if they believe it will lead to large-scale unem ployment or more poverty.'' Science was not specifically addressed by Clinton in his speech at the university, but when asked on a Shanghai radio call-in show what he was planning to do asforas expanding and promoting scientific cooperation be tween the VS. and China, he replied: "I thmk we should do more sdenœ together.''
Monsanto spends more to grow seed business Its merger with American Home Products still pending, Monsanto continues to buy and sell, although it's buying more than it's selling. The company has signed a definitive agreement to purchase CargiU's seed operations in Central and Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Africa for $1.4 billion. It has also agreed to sell its lawn and garden pesticide business to Scotts, Marysville, Ohio, for $300 million. Minneapolisbased Cargill won't disclose the size of the seed business being sold, but says it has about 2,200 employees at seed research, production, and testing facilities in 24 countries and has sales and distribution operations in 51 countries. The sale doesn't include CargiU's seed operations in the U.S. and Canada or Cargill Agricultural Merchants in the U.K. However, a Cargill official says the company is considering options for these businesses as well. According to Cargill, its seed unit has
strong distribution channels and good products made by traditional techniques, but it lacks the cost-effective access to biotechnology that is the third leg of a successful seed business today. "The biotechnology revolution is rapidly changing the international seed industry, and Monsanto has been a key player in this area," says Ernest S. Micek, CargiU's chairman and chief executive officer. For its part, Monsanto says the CargiU business wiU provide quick international access for its geneticaUy enhanced products. "The potential for our existing biotechnology traits outside North America is roughly double the acreage potential within North America," says President Hendrik A. VerfaiUie. The sale foUows an eariier agreement between Monsanto and CargiU to form a joint venture that wiU develop products improved through biotechnology for the grain processing and animal feed markets (C&EN, May 18, page 6). It also foUows stiU-pending Monsanto acquisitions of the U.S. seed companies DeKalb Genetics and Delta & Pine Land for some $4.2 biUion. The Justice DepartJULY 6, 1998 C&EN 5
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ment has asked for more information regarding the DeKalb deal but isn't ex pected to question the Cargill purchase, because Monsanto is not a major interna tional player. All these businesses will become part of a new company if Monsanto and American Home Products complete the $34 billion merger they announced in June (C&EN, June 8, page 9). The yet-tobe-named combination will be one of three emerging seed and agrochemical majors along with DuPont—which owns 20% of seed supplier Pioneer Hi-Bred— and Switzerland's Novartis. The lawn and garden business being sold to Scotts includes Ortho and other consumer pesticide products. Monsanto put this business up for sale in January. Not included is Monsanto's Roundup her bicide for residential use, but Scotts has signed a separate letter of intent for exclu sive marketing rights to the product line. Michael McCoy
High-density biochip partnership set Afive-yearpartnership to commercialize high-density biochip technology was an nounced last week by Motorola, Packard Instrument Co., and the U.S. govern ment's Argonne National Laboratory. The technology, which is capable of rapidly performing gene sequencing, gene expression, genotyping, and singlenucleotide polymorphism analyses, has potential applications for the pharmaceu tical, agricultural, medical diagnostics, environmental remediation, and crime detection industries, say the partners. The terms of the agreement specify that Argonne, along with its Moscow research partner, the Russian Academy of Sciences' Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology, will contribute 19 inventions related to bi ological microchips. In return for exclu sive commercial rights, Packard (Meriden, Conn.) and Motorola (Schaumburg, HI.) will pay a total of $19 million over five years to support the joint research agree ment. Argonne and the Engelhardt Insti tute also will receive unspecified royalties for products stemming from the alliance. Before the technology is widely avail able, the partners will offer early access to pharmaceutical companies interested in testing functional prototypes in actual lab settings. "We will place beta units at some sites this year, and we will actually start selling in 1999," said Packard Presi 6 JULY 6, 1998 C&EN
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week dent Richard T. McKernan. "As the differ ent applications develop, we expect to develop packages of equipment and cer tain kinds of chips that will help, espe cially in the drug-discovery area." Packard will manufacture and commer cialize the instrumentation and chemical reagents key to biochip technology, in cluding a BioChip Arrayer used for placing DNA samples and reagents onto the chips, and a BioChip Imager used to analyze the samples. The instruments initially will cost between $75,000 and $100,000 each.
Motorola will manufacture and sell the chips. "We envision three kinds of chips. Blank chips, generic chips on which infor mation such as the P53 gene is loaded, and custom chips where a client, perhaps a pharmaceutical company, would want a specific gene associated with a disease placed on a chip," said McKernan. All chips will employ micro-gel technology, which uses a 3-D format, allowing for 10,000 samples to be fixed to a glass sur face the size of a microscope slide. Ronald Rogers
that route because, as is possible on the web, IBM can tell which patents individ uals and companies are looking at. Perhaps PTO's decision to allow free access to its database can be traced to a promise made early this year by Carl MalThe Administration will make more than amud, a visiting professor at Massachu 20 million pages of patent and trademark setts Institute of Technology and presi information available on the Internet free dent of the Internet Multicasting Service, of charge. According to Commerce Sec a public-interest group. In April, Malaretary William M. Daley, the database mud wrote to Vice President Al Gore that will be up and running by the end of the if the government didn't act by July 1, he year. Trademark informa would buy the patent and tion will be posted by Au § trademark databases and gust, and patent informa put them on the web him I tion in November. self. Then, after a year, he would stop the service, The Patent & Trade ο substituting Gore's e-mail mark Office (PTO) will address for the databases'. make available the full text Gore, Malamud figured, of the 2 million patents could then explain to hun dating back to 1976 and dreds of thousands of us the text and images of ers why the government 800,000 trademarks regis wasn't providing free ac tered from the late 1800s cess to the databases. to the present, as well as 300,000 pending registra Malamud conducted a tions. Patent images corre similar campaign a few lating to the electronic Daley: strengthen electronic years ago and was suc text will be on-line by commerce cessful in getting the Se March 1999, and users will curities & Exchange Com be able to print the images using a normal mission to provide its EDGAR database browser print function, according to PTO. of corporate disclosure filings on the In "This electronic database is one of the ternet. PTO's announcement came a largest web offerings by a government week before Malamud's deadline. agency," says Daley. "By providing better PTO Commissioner Bruce A. Lehman, access to information on intellectual among others, had objected to the idea of property, innovation, and investment, free posting for several reasons. One, PTO, we are achieving our goal of helping which is self-supporting, needed the reve electronic commerce become a strong nuefromsales of the database. In addition, contributor to growth and jobs." PTO did not want to be seen as compet PTO's patent and trademark database ing with the information industry, which was one of the most sought-after among makes value-added patent information the government databases still not avail available electronically for a price. able free to the public; federal court Further information on the PTO opinions are another. IBM provides free patent and trademark databases can be public access to many patent abstracts obtained on the web, of course. Go to and image files (C&EN, Jan. 20, 1997, www.uspto.gov. page 19), but some users may be leery of Linda Raber
PTO will post patent, trademark images on web
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