Was Michael Crichton killed because of Gene Patents??

First post!

I tried to make sure this wasn't a re-post, and if so my bad, but i can't believe this topic isn't on ATS.. The only mention of Michael Crichton's death being suspicious on the internet seems to be a couple other conspiracy threads

Ok, first of all, Michael Crichton is one of my favorite authors, and until yesterday I did not know he had been dead since Nov. 4 2008. It could just be me not seeing or hearing about it, but does anyone remember any media coverage of his death? I wiki'd him yesterday to see when he was releasing a new book, and i found that he'd been dead for a year and a half.
Anyway, that's not the suspicious part.

So I had to write a paper yesterday, and since I had just seen the news (olds?) about Crichton, I decided to write it (an ethical essay for a science class) about the topic of his last book before his death: gene patenting.

The book is called Next, great book.
For those of you not familiar with Crichton (apart from Jurassic Park), he's a hugely successful writer, and creator/writer of the series ER. He is a science-fiction writer, but he tends to use facts to explore a (within-the-realm-of-possibility) potential problem with an emerging part of science in his books (nanotechnology in Prey, gene patents in Next, time travel in Timeline).

So, here's my theory after pulling an all-nighter to write an essay on gene patenting. In the book Next, Crichton shows many problems with the fact that genes are being patented, and he also shows some potential problems of genetic engineering (protagonist lives with human-chimp hybrid and a super-smart parrot with human dna)
Also, Crichton shows exactly what kind of power the genetic engineering industry has (multibillion dollar industry)... about 20% of all human genes (all the known important ones, and lots more) are patented, and these companies and universities have the exclusive rights to use "their" genes. This eliminates competition and drives prices way up (see Myriad genetics charging $3000 for the only available genetic screening for breast cancer, and screwing the Europeans even more than us (they have international patents)). Actually Myriad just got denied in court march 29, look it up if you want more info.

Honestly, I tried to write an unbiased essay on gene patents, but literally every time I found someone arguing for gene patenting, I found out that they were directly and hugely benefitting from gene patents (all the pro-patent sources i found, other than a few bloggers out of tons, were either companies with gene patents or a patent lawyer, and half his clients hold gene patents)

To give examples of how these companies fudge the truth:
- Jorge Goldstein, the patent lawyer, has a law firm with 3 other people that he's the head of. on their site they have a huge list of clients including adidas, google, apple, and some other ambiguously-named genetic engineering companies. Like half of the clients have links, and half don't. I looked up most of those companies and found out that most of the companies without links were the gene-patenting ones, and the ones with links were almost all not gene-patenting. Their law firm's website has no mention of gene patenting or anything related to genetics, although getting gene patents for clients is most of what he does. I only found all of this when I decided to look up this guys credentials after reading this completely biased article v v v
In the article he wrote on gene patenting, which never mentions that he is a patent lawyer, he completely fudges facts and uses lawyer-like evasive techniques to avoid answering real questions about gene patents, and making it seem like people against gene patents simply don't understand

Simple fact is, genes are being patented so people can have a monopoly on their use which already causes many problems (look it up) but could end up with horrible consequences once we can find new uses for genetic engineering

Continued!!

[edit on 29-4-2010 by lldd182]

[edit on 29-4-2010 by lldd182]

He was one of my favorite authors also, I wonder if his books on Gene tampering was a warning about what the Monsanto abomination is all about.

Including big pharma been caught red handed putting animal DNA in children vaccines.



[edit on 29-4-2010 by marg6043]

reply to post by marg6043


Good post!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think you got it.

Yep read my location.

You mess with the "big boys" the true owners of our government and you end up dead.

Gene patents eliminate competition completely in ways that regular patents don't. Patenting a gene is more like patenting an entire product; like patenting corn and being able to charge enormous amounts for licenses to use it. It's not just like patenting an oven, because in the case of an oven you can use a campfire or microwave or something. I don't know if that made any sense...I didn't want to turn this into a rant against gene patents but I wanted to give some background information

Anyway, before i got way off-topic (but for real i challenge you to find someone credible and unbiased who is for gene patents; this obviously excludes politicians too, come on ATS), Chrichton's last two books were anti-global warming (State of Fear) and anti-gene patenting (next)


Both of these topics are probably pretty upsetting to the global elite, but were they upsetting enough that someone decided to kill him? Crichton was probably the highest-profile spokesperson against gene patenting, and when he died he was apparently 1/3 into a sequel to Next.

When he died of lung cancer, his family said his death was unexpected. That's about all the evidence I have, but when I was writing that essay it seemed like a lot of these companies that have genes patented are up to some shady stuff. Their websites won't even have the word gene in it; they try to avoid directly explaining what they do.

I dunno, Crichton tried his best, in speeches and essays as well as Next, to spread the word about gene patenting, trying to expose these companies for all kinds of things. I think an essay about it is on his official website. Also, he clarifies on his site what parts of Next are true, calling out a few corporations directly. I think someone with interests in these companies got him killed, maybe even someone in the government.

I dunno

interesting, i read the book. never thought about his death much but i doubt it had anything to do with it.

if you read the last part, a judge made it illegal to patent genes.

reply to post by DOADOA


If you're talking about illegal in the book, then i dont remember, i read it a few years ago.
If you're talking about illegal in real life, gene patents are very much legal, and there are no laws to distinguish between gene patents and regular patents. Well, on March 29 a judge ruled against Myriad (the biggest example of corporate greed among gene patent holders, btw) that their patents on the breast cancer genes were invalid. However, Myriad is appealing that decision, so I guess we'll find out if that lasts

I wondered if he was maybe murdered after reading state of fear (which was basically an expose of what a great big scam the climate change scare is.) I guess the question is "is it possible to induce cancer in someone?". I tend to think he just died but hey, who knows?

Originally posted by mrwiffler
I wondered if he was maybe murdered after reading state of fear (which was basically an expose of what a great big scam the climate change scare is.) I guess the question is "is it possible to induce cancer in someone?". I tend to think he just died but hey, who knows?

True. I'm not a doctor, but this all I know about inducing cancer in someone. Cancer is caused by mutations in genes that make your body keep creating cells uncontrollably. You die when these cells basically take up too much space and mess with the function of the other cells in your body.

So, it seems completely possible to me that someone could inject you with, or put in your food or something, some cells that multiply uncontrollably just like cancer cells. As long as those cells can survive in the human body. So, if someone were able to preserve some cancer cells from another dead guy and keep them alive, it seems reasonable (maybe more complicated than how I'm explaining it, though) that someone could inject the cells into someone's bloodstream and let them run wild. So these cancer cells wouldn't be "your" cancer cells, but still cancer cells. It seems intuitively plausible to me that if you can inject a person with a living virus, then you can do the same with living cancer cells


For example, when Jack Ruby (the guy who killed Lee Harvey Oswald) died, he said that he had been injected with cancer cells and told that it was for a cold. Soon after, he died of lung cancer (just like Crichton).
Jack Ruby was given the death sentence for killing oswald. He then appealed the decision, and he died before his new trial date was set. All of this, including the cancer cells part, is on wikipedia and cited if you want to look more into it.
Why would someone want to kill Ruby? I probably don't have to explain this to ATS people, but by killing Ruby, now Kennedy, Oswald, and Ruby are dead. So no one can talk. Perfect plan for whoever wanted Kennedy dead in the first place.


By the way, I'm not saying someone wanted to kill Crichton just because of a book, because people write anti-establishment books all the time and don't get killed for it. But Crichton was very serious about gene patenting, and like I said earlier, he wrote lots of essays and made speeches about it from when he wrote Next until his death. He was the main guy trying to spread the word about gene patents.

Flagged and Saved!


Great post, and lots of stuff I didnt know...


If you have any links to pdfs on any of this stuff, please, please post them.


Good research, and well written!

Originally posted by Goethe

If you have any links to pdfs on any of this stuff, please, please post them.

Good research, and well written!

Here are some related links. Here is the article by patent lawyer Jorge Goldstein that I wrote about in the original post:

journals.lww.com...

This article especially pisses me off because it is a perfect example of using language to distract from the truth. I guess I'll just post some quotes from the article to highlight this. I think it is extremely important to really examine what you read and hear, because people use all kinds of Freudian mind-tricks in advertising and persuading, and it is extremely important to be able to recognize this.
-quotes from Goldstein:
"The concept of a patent on a human gene seems foreign to most people. Even those who understand the fundamentals of the patent system seem bewildered and confused by many issues relating to human genes. [This article] addresses and clarifies these and other issues, including the often reported and misdirected question, Who owns one's genes?" (Abstract)
From the start, Goldstein tries to make the association in your mind that most people just don't understand gene patents. The main strategy of gene patent people seems to be to bring up the question "who owns one's genes" because it is easy for them to defend. Gene patents don't give anyone the rights to your personal genes, so no one can just show up and make you pay them for having their genes. The thing is, people disagree with gene patenting for completely different reasons. Yes, I think that the idea of patenting a part of the human body is certainly weird, but that is not why I disagree with gene patenting. I disagree with it because it's a huge scam which leads to monopolies on disease cures and screens, and it slows the progress of science.

one heading of the article reads, "How Can One Patent Natural Substances Such as Genes?"
Ok, another bull# association. Just because a gene sequence is "natural" does not mean it should be treated like any other natural substance. The judge from the Myriad case put it best:
"[Myriad genetics] fails to acknowledge the unique characteristics of DNA that differentiate it from other chemical compounds…The information encoded in DNA is not information about its own molecular structure incidental to its biological function, as is the case with adrenaline or other chemicals found in the body. Rather, the information encoded by DNA reflects its primary biological function: directing the synthesis of other molecules in the body —namely, proteins."
another relevant quote from Judge Sweet is below:
"Many, however, including scientists in the fields of molecular biology and genomics, have considered this practice [gene patenting] a 'lawyer's trick' that circumvents the prohibitions on the direct patenting of the DNA in our bodies but which, in practice, reaches the same result"

Here are links to things Michael Crichton has written about gene patents, and some other stuff:

www.nytimes.com...
www.crichton-official.com...
www.nytimes.com...
www.crichton-official.com...
www.crichton-official.com...
www.crichton-official.com...

Please read these if you want to know more about gene patenting. Michael Crichton explains it a million times better than I do; I don't know why I didn't just start the original post by putting these links up. Especially read the last link; not just about gene patenting, but very interesting. None of these articles are that long, either.

WATCH THE LINK!

video.google.com...

Check out that link. I'm watching from Canada so I don't know if the link is the same everywhere. It is
"An Hour with Michael Crichton" on the Charlie Rose show...or something like that. Anyway, there are very many points that he makes that pretty much form a dam against the current of the mainstream. Upon watching this I immediately started to suspect that he had been murdered. I went to google it and then I found this page here.
He has a lot to say in this video. It's really worth a look
-criticises gene patenting
-criticises global warming
-etc.

MICHAEL CRICHTON even SAYS that he decided to write the book shortly after having a conversation with someone who said HE MIGHT GET KILLED FOR IT in the video. Definitely worth a watch. This gets said at approximately 40:40 (just shortly after that point)

reply to post by vengeancewithasmile


Excellent video, I just watched it.