HashOut

You and your loved ones may die because of a disease just because researchers couldn’t pay the hefty amount to the gene patent holder for a license.

Gene patent holders charge exorbitantly for a license. The patent holders block any competitor’s test too! They own the genes. Nobody else can test for it. In fact, you can’t even donate your own breast cancer gene to another scientist without the permission. The gene may exist in your body, but is now owned by the patent holder.

Patents are to be granted for human inventions. Genes aren’t human inventions they are features of the natural world. You can’t patent snow, eagles or gravity and you shouldn’t be able to patent genes, either. Yet by now, one fifth of the genes in your body are privately owned.

In some cases, a gene’s owner also owns the mutations of that gene, and these mutations can be markers for disease. Countries that don’t have gene patents offer better gene testing, because when multiple labs are allowed to do testing, more mutations are discovered, leading to higher-quality tests.

The owner of a genome for Hepatitis C charges millions to study this disease. As a result, researchers choose to study something less expensive.

But forget the costs: why should people or companies own a disease? They didn’t invent it. Yet today, more than 20 human pathogens are privately owned, including haemophilus influenza and Hepatitis C. If you undergo the test, the company that owns the patent on the gene can keep your tissue and do research on it without your permission.

Gene patents aren’t benign and never will be. When SARS was spreading across the globe, medical researchers hesitated to study it — because of patent concerns. There is no clearer indication that gene patents block innovation, inhibit research and put us all at risk.

Even your doctor can’t get relevant information. An asthma medication only works in certain patients. Yet its manufacturer has squelched efforts by others to develop genetic tests that would determine on whom it will and will not work.

Such commercial considerations interfere with a great dream. For years we have been promised the coming era of personalized medicine. Gene patents destroy that dream.