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Monday, April 8, 2013

8 April 2013

Welcome to another week on The Daily Quota - where we guarantee* that you satisfy your daily cravings for enlightenment and brain activity.
*The Daily Quota makes no such guarantee.

Today we start with the famous story behind Jonas Salk and the invention of the polio vaccine.
In 1955, he was asked by a talk-show host, "who owns the patent on the vaccine?"
"Well, the people", he replied, "there is no patent. Could you patent the sun?"


Ah, how the times they have a-changed. 
Recently, the Australian Federal Court upheld a decision from by US Supreme Court, allowing Myriad Genetics Inc. to patent the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes - both of which have strong links to the development of breast cancer.
Cancer Voices Australia brought the action against Myriad in an effort to prevent Australian companies from gaining exclusive control over genetic material.

The consequences of such a decision is best summarised in this extract from the article below:
Anyone conducting an experiment on them without a license can be sued for infringement of patent rights. This means that Myriad can decide what research is carried out on those genes, who can do that research, and how much any resulting therapy or diagnostic test will cost. The same holds true for other genes and for any pharmaceutical company, scientist, or university that holds patents similar to those held by Myriad.
Although Australian patent law excludes 'human beings, and the biological processes for their generation', the court found that this patented gene was not biological per se, but rather a 'manner of manufacture'.
So basically, the court took the view that the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes aren't part of our biology, but rather human discoveries, and were means to ends.
Myriad's lawyers compared it to the extraction of minerals from the ground - the minerals themselves cannot be patented, but the processes for extraction can.

Today's Daily Quota poses the question; should we be allowed to patent human genetics?
Now ethically, the answer seems obvious. However, the entire point of patents are to protect an entity's investments, efforts and commercial interests in their area of practice.
Should corporate entities be allowed to patent
If these 'genes' are patented, and no one else is allowed to touch them, would that stifle research? Open sourced research and crowd-sourcing have produced some great results. Is that about to change?

This debate will inevitably arise once again in the future - in court rooms, parliamentary hearings and around the water cooler.
Below is a New Yorker piece discussing the original 2010 US Supreme Court judgement.

READ IT HERE

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