By Darlene VannEDGEWATER, Fla. -- I would bet that you think you own every part of your body, don’t you? Well, you would be wrong about that.
Let me explain.
There are research companies that discovered genes and have patented them. For instance, the breast cancer gene is one of the genes that my body may possess but it no longer belongs to me.
Yes, I’d be the one to fight the cancer, but the gene that causes it can only be tested for by one company (Myriad Genetics) that now owns the patent. That company charges $3,200 for this test.
If I want a second opinion, I can’t have it, because by law no other company is allowed to do the test. In Canada and Europe where the patent law has been challenged or simply ignored, the same test costs about $300, which the U.S. test would cost if the genes were in the public domain.
Having worked in a lab at one time, I know there are lab errors, false positives and other things that can make a test invalid. I would want to question this positive result before a surgeon lops off my breasts or yanks out my ovaries because I have the gene. Wouldn’t you?
Having worked in a lab at one time, I know there are lab errors, false positives and other things that can make a test invalid. I would want to question this positive result before a surgeon lops off my breasts or yanks out my ovaries because I have the gene. Wouldn’t you?
This all began in with an oil spill. A company at that time found a genetically-altered bacterium that would eat the bacteria and aid in cleanup. It applied for a patent and the final outcome was a 1980 Supreme Court decision that a life form genetically altered could be patented.
The Biotech companies saw that ruling as an open door to patent the altered genes they had discovered to cure or identify a plethora of illnesses.
Today, there are more than 10,000 genes patented by Biotech corporations.
Patents were originally instituted to reward inventors who brought something new to the world, i.e., the Polio vaccine. While the altered gene is new it is based on a gene that has been around since man first walked on the planet and therefore should not be allowed to be patented.
The patent in essence says that the corporation owns the gene, any mutation of the gene later found by anyone else therefore that gene is now only available to the corporation with the patent.
Lori Andrews, a law professor at Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago-Kent College of Law, says this practice is bad for health care because if the genes were available more scientists would be experimenting creating better testing and perhaps curing many more diseases. The patents have inhibited research in a big way and that is certainly detrimental to you and me.
Boston University’s Center for Human Genetics takes the position that a gene is a natural living thing and wonders how it can be patented. Jonas Salk, who invented the polio vaccine, said “patenting his vaccine is like patenting the sun.”
Myriad Genetics developed the BRAC test to determine if women have the gene that causes breast and ovarian cancer. Until 2018 when that patent expires they are the only source allowed to test for the gene, no second opinions from any other lab unless you go to Canada or Europe. Not many people can afford that trip.
How many women have been mutilated by unnecessary surgery because of a testing error or false positive that can’t be verified by another lab? Chris Hansen, lead lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, brought a landmark case against Myriad Genetics regarding the patenting of the breast cancer gene.
Hansen is asking that this law be declared unconstitutional and should be invalidated because longstanding patent law doctrine states that products of nature and abstract ideas can’t be patented.
Since a gene is removed from a body, stripped and pieces of it have now become a new drug, treatment or test those items alone should be patented not the gene itself.
A federal judge ruled in favor of the ACLU, saying the patents were improperly granted on products of nature. Naturally, Myriad Genetics is appealing that ruling. Should it stand, all the other 10,000 patented genes would follow and this travesty would stop. Our bodies would be ours alone once more.
I hope this has been informative for you. It sure made me sit up and pay attention.
We need to stop being sheep and just following along, never questioning.
We need to be aware of what’s going on in our world.
When these things are being done there is no fanfare, we hardly ever know unless someone decides to write about it or put it on television, which is where I heard about it. The report was by Morley Safer on 60 minutes on CBS. It was such an eye opener to me that I thought I should pass on the information.
So, would I have won that bet that you don’t own your whole body? I think so.