The Fight to Take Back Our Genes

The Fight to Take Back Our Genes

www.aclu.org

In 2009, 20 professional medical associations, geneticists, breast cancer and women’s health groups, and patients filed a lawsuit charging that patents on BRCA1 and BRCA2 are invalid and unconstitutional. The ACLU and the Public Patent Foundation, which represents the plaintiffs, will argue this case before the Supreme Court in April 2013.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Proceedings begin April 15, 2013.

Most of us know how dark Big Pharma can be but I had no idea patenting genes was actually a thing. The linked page has many side stories and facts about this issue, I recommend reading about it, especially women.

Though the case is ultimately about disabling the patenting of genes, specifically it is about 2 breast cancer genes and how testing for these genes or rather legally being barred from testing for these genes affects women's health.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has granted thousands of patents on human genes – in fact, about 20 percent of our genes are patented. A gene patent holder has the right to prevent anyone from studying, testing or even looking at a gene. As a result, scientific research and genetic testing has been delayed, limited or even shut down due to concerns about gene patents.

That is unacceptable in my opinion. We hear about potential cures for all kinds of diseases all the time, how many deadly diseases could have been cured by now or be well on their way to being cured if doctors were allowed access to all of our genes? I don't recall ever giving anyone the right to own any of of my genes. This, to me, seems like a crime against humanity.



www.aclu.org
(visit the link for the full news article)

it amazes me what we allow to go on in this world. we all deserve everything we get, because we let it happen.

Originally posted by dc4lifeskater
it amazes me what we allow to go on in this world. we all deserve everything we get, because we let it happen.

We haven't seen nothing yet.

Wait til Monsanto owns all rights & patents to Air itself. Then we will all be required licenses to breath, and then have to pay a breath tax.

Then water, thoughts, etc.....

reply to post by dominicus


hopefully ill be dead by then and all of the kids who dont give a crap will have to deal with what they have created for themselves... ENJOY IT.

reply to post by dominicus


Monsanto will get the food and soil.
Oil companies through their geoengineering funding will get the air.
We really need to take back our planet.

reply to post by dominicus


Crack me up and call me Betsy~ This sounds like something out of the movie "Tank Girl"

reply to post by sulaw


I don't think it will as drastic as all that, not so overt...
but subtle, unknown until stumbled upon. Like the owning of human genes.

The genes belong to everyone, in my opinion. There shouldn't even be a way to patent something like that.

But, the fact that these breast cancer genes are being held hostage so that they may not be studied? That should be a crime against humanity.

I hope that the justice system doesn't fail us this time around and that legislation is put in place to not allow patents on human genetic material any longer.

The world these days and the state of things and the corruption that seems to be oozing out of every pore of every system in place, absolutely disgusts me.

This world has turned into a sick, sick place.

S&F

I was'nt aware of this either-how in the Lord's name are you granted a patent on genes????????????? Really i don't even know what to say-this has me just about speechless.

Michael Crichton wrote an awesome and very scarey book about this very thing after attending conferences at the Jefferson Institute. When learning of how laws were being enacted to patent genes he immediately stopped what he was doing and franked out the novel titled "NEXT".

I read the entire novel while flying Ba k from England and could not put it down. In this novels appendices he goes into what he has found during his research and very eye opening.

A must read if you value this topic.

Just wait till patented genes are used for a cure and you discover you are no longer your own but property of the manufacturer that holds the patent.

Very scarey and REAL...

So many questions!

Did discovery of these genes somehow convey ownership to the discovery maker?
Do these companies own the physical genes or the formula used to describe or produce said genes?
Could I make a slight change to a patented gene and then patent it as my own?
Could someone posses a certain gene, but not own the right to manufacture the gene for the purpose of selling it?
Could you sue for a royalty on the use of a gene patent on a gene that you naturally posses?
Could you patent all your genes, right now, by providing samples, but without actually knowing the formula for all your genes?

A freaking mess legally, I would say.

reply to post by Terminal1


Sounds like a must read. I'll look for that.
Thanks.

I just came across this while I was searching up the issue.

Gene patents are antithetical to
scientific progress
Even if gene patents continue to be legal,
scientists should refuse to file them for
another reason: any scientist who files
a gene patent is, perhaps unknowingly,
participating in a process that violates the
basic rules by which science operates. In
particular, scientists should disseminate
their findings and encourage others to
push their work further. This principle
applies to all scientists, but particularly
to those of us working in universities,
nonprofits, and other academic settings.
When scientists file for a patent (or
allow their technology transfer office to
file one for them), they are required to
conceal their work, keeping the “invention” out of the hands of possible competitors until the legal process ensures
that the patent is protected. Although
an invention can be published once the
patent application is filed, patent lawyers
prefer to keep inventions secret, whereas
scientists should want to make their discoveries public. These two goals are in
direct opposition: if the patent lawyers
win, then science loses.
From a broad perspective, much of the
scientific progress during the past two
centuries has occurred because we share
our scientific discoveries. The faster our
work is disseminated, the more rapidly
we move forward. The entire system of
scientific journals was created to serve
this purpose. Science that remains secret
cannot contribute to scientific progress
and is for all intents worthless.

An interesting perspective from a scientist from a Joh Hopkins publication. Long read but a good one.

Originally posted by Kali74
reply to post by Terminal1

 

Sounds like a must read. I'll look for that.
Thanks.

NEXT isn't his greatest work like Jurassic Park, Coma or others. Personally I think he wrote NEXT with the idea to outrage his readers to the patent laws concerning genetics. It is somewhat an uncomfortable read but if this topic holds your interest you will turn pages.

I think it was written in 2005 and in his appendices of the book he shows what he has researched to a degree and talks about current legislation moving through Congress at that time and pretty boldly tells his readers what they can do to help stop it. Apparently he felt very strongly on the subject because it shows in that work.

Seriously it really is worth the read if not for the story of what CAN happen but raises alarms on what WILL happen if left in the dark like it is.

Thanks for this thread and the reminder... already starred and flagged.

This is such a big issue. Bump! Bump! Bump! And please send them alot of attention on this one, post alot.

This is insane but not surprising coming from Big Pharma, these fools didn't invent these genes,
this is like the Monsanto patenting of living organisms.

Crazy world we're living in..

If you had said to me, when I was a kid, that in the near future there would be people out there patenting genes, not designer genes, but naturally occuring genes, then I would have laughed in your face. If you had subsequently informed me that rather than using these patents to increase and empower research into thier form an function, the patents would be used to limit that research to individuals and/or companies then I would have laughed in your face again, and started sharpening my knives.

But since then it has become apparant that these patents on genes exist, and serve no other purpose than to limit the speed and efficiency of the drive to cure something as devastating as cancer. This is no different than oil companies buying up green energy production methods, and burying them until such a time as they can work out how to charge someone per mile, per kilowatt hour for the use of them.

Right now, in every nation on this planet, someone is sitting in a doctors surgery, getting told they have cancer of some sort, or sitting in a ward full of folks who are having radiotherapy, and considering thier mortality. Others are in total agony, or are so dosed to the eyesockets that the last days with thier loved ones, will be spent in a drug induced near stupor. Someone on planet Earth, just right there, when I typed the first comma in this sentence, someone got told they have less than a month to live.

When oil companies pull a fast one and dupe us out of our money, sure, we get pretty damned aggravated (those of us who are watching them properly anyway). When our governments lie to us about the reasons for thier actions, when our politicians prove themselves unworthy of our votes, our time, our very attention, we are aggrieved. But these patents on genes threaten our very LIVES! One in four people get some form of cancer at some point in thier lives, so I am told. We are warned to be on constant guard against carcinogens, to drink carefully, to avoid smoking, eat healthy foods, the definition of which changes as often as the direction of the wind.

We do the dance of death with that disease every time we take a breath, take a dump, go out in the sunlight. And some disreputable piece of corperate crap, thinks that it is appropriate to monetise these genes? Sure enough, I am not going to be getting breast or ovarian cancer, since I have neither of these things, being male. But being an informed sort of a chap, I am concerned about the future, aware that I am a dweller in urban places, exposed to all manner of chemical effluence from various sources. Which of the cancer genes that results in testicular cancer have they a patent on? Do they yet have ownership of the lung cancer gene? How about the gene that causes brain cancers? These genes should not be part of a company portfolio! They are not real estate, nor are they an asset. Unless they actually went out and CREATED themselves a brand new gene, these companies can have no legitimate claim to any such gene.

Worse yet, they are morally retarded for wishing to do so. Any company which is so seriously defunct in this regard, ought to be banned from pharmacology entirely, and its every board member publically flogged for forgetting that power cannot be gained without a significant gain in responsibility. When one has power over a gene, one should be obligated to empower research, not hinder it for profits.

I hope every single suit who has ever purchased a patent on a gene is summarily put into a cage with ten randy baboons and then used as a comode by crocodiles.

Michael Crichton wrote a book on this very subject a few years ago as he foresaw how Pharma companies would try to exploit loopholes in the patent laws.

It didn't seem far fetched even then, and he predicted it would quickly become a reality.

en.wikipedia.org...

Why can I find no record of the patented, natural genes?

I have only researched BRCA1 so far, and here are the two patents associated with it:

Patent US5747282

This patent protects Myraid Genetics' procedure and materials used for isolating BRCA1.

Patent US6838256

This patent protects Myraid Genetics' 3 variants of BRCA1 (omi1, omi2, omi3)

Is the second the patent in question? Is that the natural BRCA1, or is that a 'designer gene'?

Complete aside, both of these patents have been in service for over a decade.