When Genae Girard received a diagnosis of breast cancer in 2006, she knew she would be facing medical challenges and high expenses. But she did not expect to run into patent problems.
Ms. Girard took a genetic test to see if her genes also put her at increased risk for ovarian cancer, which might require the removal of her ovaries. The test came back positive, so she wanted a second opinion from another test. But there can be no second opinion. A decision by the government more than 10 years ago allowed a single company, Myriad Genetics, to own the patent on two genes that are closely associated with increased risk for breast cancer and ovarian cancer, and on the testing that measures that risk.
On Tuesday, Ms. Girard, 39, who lives in the Austin, Tex., area, filed a lawsuit against Myriad and the Patent Office, challenging the decision to grant a patent on a gene to Myriad and companies like it. She was joined by four other cancer patients, by professional organizations of pathologists with more than 100,000 members and by several individual pathologists and genetic researchers.
The lawsuit, believed to be the first of its kind, was organized by the American Civil Liberties Union and filed in federal court in New York. It blends patent law, medical science, breast cancer activism and an unusual civil liberties argument in ways that could make it a landmark case.
[blockquote]What they have really patented is knowledge.[/blockquote]
[blockquote]You can’t patent my DNA, any more than you can patent my right arm, or patent my blood.[/blockquote]
What more is there to say? I’m ready for the collapse of this “civilisation”. Bring on the Dark Ages!
This case doesn’t sound so simple to me.
I don’t mind the idea of a company making huge profits off their own test for a while, to reward them for their work. But I don’t understand why another company shouldn’t be allowed to devise their own test to compete with that if they discover the gene. Doesn’t a patent on a gene inhibit competitive improvements to an existing test?
Would the patent office have granted a patent on DNA to Watson and Crick if they had asked for it?
What happens if a company in a foreign country that doesn’t respect American patents decides to introduce a competitive test?
So many questions, so little time…
It sounds like they have NOT really patented a gene. They have patented a way of examining a gene. I don’t think they have really attempted to patent a process of nature, they have patented a test.
That being said, there must be a way of getting at this company to make them pay a price IF they are charging too much or restricting the use of this test in a way that keeps people from using it for a fair (if high!) price.
Scripture speaks of the fact that the rich should not “grind the faces of the poor”. There is a passage that speaks to a man hoarding grain and refusing to sell to the poor who are starving. However, it does NOT say that the grain should be taken from the rich man or that the law should be used to appropriate his property.
So, If the company is being unreasonable, is it possible to find out what other products they make and boycott them? What about starting a hostile PR campaign against them? Where do they advertise their products?
I think using bad PR is more effective and just than suggesting we take away the property of the gene company.
#3 – Scripture might not demand the forced taking away of a stingy man’s wealth, but a close look at tithes and gleaning in the Law of Moses shows God to not be opposed to legislating some form of wealfare and protections for the poor. When the law of the land is skewed in favor of the rich, and the poor are oppressed, how can justice be done? Of course, I seem to remember the Church was supposed to fill that gap, but we all seem to busy trying to hold onto multi-million dollar buildings!
Didymus,
Good point. As I recall in Ruth, for instance, we see that the poor were allowed a sort of “workfare” arrangement where they could “glean” the corners of the fields. The landowner was expected to leave some harvest in the field so they could retreive it.
The other place that I recall was in the care of destitute family. It was expected that people cared for their own relatives.
Contrast the Biblical view to that of modern politicians. Instead of workfare, we have welfare. Instead of families taking care of their own, and the (local) community stepping in with accountability and aid when people are alone, we have administrations “tweaking” the tax code so that they can get 49% of the people carrying 51% of the rest–just enough to keep winning elections.
Consider also that the Biblical tax was a flat tax of 10% plus a gift, and various fees for firstborns/firstfruits. There was no or minimal “progressive” tax concept there in terms of percentage of one’s income.
I kind of like the Jubilee “everyone is out of debt in no more than 6 years” and you are never too far from getting back the family farm. Unfortunately the Jews essentially never followed these laws of Jubilee.
Why does she think she needs a second test which doesn’t exist? Sounds like the old ACLU trying to raid someone who invented something and won’t give it away. Marx would be proud. Patents have time limits and without them this test would not be availabel to anyone. Despotic government is the one now grinding the faces of the poor. With real threats of confiscatory taxes and rampant inflation, the little red hen is deciding to sit quietly in her nest and not do anything that will be taken away from her. Politics of envy, greed, hands in someone’s elses pockets, class warfare, and power against the outsiders. things should slow down real slow. IMHO