Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 12:37 am
I'm about 33% of the way through this book.... but already, holy shit.
Premise seems to be about how the human genome is getting patented one gene at a time, which basically renders our tissues as... not ours.
I haven't gotten into the meat of the plot yet, but here's one of the many strings of plotline that are currently there, but heretofore disconjunct with every other thread of the story:
In the book the UCLA bio department realizes a cancer patient produces an abnormally high amount of some cancer-fighting factor... so they continue taking tissue from him every 6 months for years after his cancer is gone... and they don't tell him they've made $3 billion, with a B, by selling his tissues to pharmaceutical companies.
The guy finds out, and takes UCLA to court.
The judge rules that there is a patent owned by UCLA, and the dude received UCLA's help in fighting cancer, so he has no right to his tissues, nor to the money they have made by selling his tissues. Furthermore, and here's the scary part, it is UCLA, a state school... his tissues were declared property of the state, so they got to continue harvesting his tissues, against his will, under eminent domain.
Is this where we're heading?
I'll write more once I finish the book.
Premise seems to be about how the human genome is getting patented one gene at a time, which basically renders our tissues as... not ours.
I haven't gotten into the meat of the plot yet, but here's one of the many strings of plotline that are currently there, but heretofore disconjunct with every other thread of the story:
In the book the UCLA bio department realizes a cancer patient produces an abnormally high amount of some cancer-fighting factor... so they continue taking tissue from him every 6 months for years after his cancer is gone... and they don't tell him they've made $3 billion, with a B, by selling his tissues to pharmaceutical companies.
The guy finds out, and takes UCLA to court.
The judge rules that there is a patent owned by UCLA, and the dude received UCLA's help in fighting cancer, so he has no right to his tissues, nor to the money they have made by selling his tissues. Furthermore, and here's the scary part, it is UCLA, a state school... his tissues were declared property of the state, so they got to continue harvesting his tissues, against his will, under eminent domain.
Is this where we're heading?
I'll write more once I finish the book.