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Patent a Body Part, Make a Buck

By Joe Consumer

Is it too much of a stretch to say that corporations want to own everything?  I?m not even talking about the repulsive trend of companies sticking their name on every cultural venue and sports arena, tainting the entire world?s entertainment experience.  I?m talking about actually owning everything!

Last night, 60 Minutes had an incredibly creepy story about how companies have been allowed to patent human genes, which exist in every single person.  One company -  Myriad Genetics - has been allowed to patent the genes that predispose women to breast cancer.  If these genes are mutated, women have an extremely high risk of getting ovarian or breast cancer so finding out if someone has this irregularity is literally a life and death issue ? not to mention a financial one. 

But it?s worse than you think.  60 Minutes reports:

Myriad Genetics controls all testing on the two breast cancer genes because they own the genes, lock stock and barrel. They patented them and no one else can legally test for them, or look at them, or even develop potential therapies that are based on them without Myriad's consent.

When it comes to inherited breast cancer, it's Myriad or nothing.

Just ask Genae Girard. Since doctors suspected that her cancer was also genetic she too got tested and her results were positive. Doctors recommended that she have a double mastectomy and have her ovaries removed.

"Which was a very tough decision. I mean, I'm still in my 30s and this is going to change my life whether or not I ever wanna have children. And that was a big deal," she said.

So she did the obvious: sought a second opinion - another genetic sequencing from a different lab.

But her doctor told her that wasn't possible.

"I think Myriad Laboratory is a very reputable company. But I know for a fact that there's human error that exists in laboratories and I would have felt a lot better about these decisions if I had that," she said.

Boy, I?ll say.  We know of two women - Molly Akers and Linda McDougal each of whom, due to lab errors,  received unnecessary mastectomies after being told they had cancer when they didn?t.

What?s more, this isn?t the only reason to be frightened by the biotech industry.  Last week,  ?A federal jury ? awarded $1.37 million in damages to a former Pfizer scientist who claimed she was sickened by a genetically engineered virus at a company laboratory and then fired for raising safety concerns.? According to the New York Times, ?the case ?  has raised questions about the safety of workers in the biotechnology industry and about regulations to protect them. ... Ms. McClain, for example, claimed she encountered many difficulties in her attempts to learn the genetic content of the virus she suspected had infected her because it was protected as a trade secret. ?It?s a field that has been trade-secreted out of the sunlight,? Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate, said Friday."

As far as gene patenting, 60 Minutes reported that at least one court has ruled it invalid.  But it sure makes you long for the days of Jonas Salk, (pictured above) who refused to patent the polio vaccine saying "There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?"  

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Full post as published by ThePopTort on April 05, 2010 (boomark / email).